Separate Paths
by Bear-Bell
Summary: Bella never left Forks. She grew up with Jacob and heard the Quileute stories. Then, the Cullens move into town, and Bella's familiar, comfortable life slowly begins to change. BxJ BxE
1. Introduction

**Disclamer- I do not own Twilight. Or New Moon. Or Eclips. **

* * *

Cold rain was pelting against my face, and I flinched. I braced my good hand on the ceiling and struggled to untangle my seat belt from my legs before setting myself upright. Blood rushed back to my head as I leaned against the upside-down passenger seat. Finally, the world outside the broken windows looked right. The only thing wrong now was the car, and my mom-

"Mom, are you-"

My breath left me as I looked at my mother. Her legs and torso were tangled in the seat belt and her arms were limp against the roof. I began hyperventilating as I noticed the odd angle of her neck. I screamed, then fought to get away from the sight. Gripping the window, I ignored the shards of glass that cut into my skin as I pulled myself out of the car.

"I don't remember much after that," I told Jacob, shifting uncomfortably in the scratchy weeds. "Honestly, I wish I didn't remember any of it."

"That sounds scary," Jacob said. When he said nothing more, I turned my head to study his face as he stared up at the sky. His expression was contemplative, and it reminded me of the look Charley sometimes had on his face after a bad day at work. The expression didn't look right on Jacob's young face.

"I get another one, remember?" he finally asked.

I wanted to argue that "Why?" couldn't be counted as a second question. After all, I was only asking for an expansion of his explanation of my question, and he didn't have to answer it if he didn't want to. Still, we had already had a discussion about it, and I had already conceded to Jacob's childish arguments, so I answered, "Yeah, I remember."

"Truth or Triple Truth?" he asked.

We had already crossed the line, so I once again answered, "Triple Truth."

Jacob turned towards me in the grass and propped his head in his hand. I became nervous when his dark eyes met and held mine, and I folded my hands over my stomach as if they could protect me from his question.

"Why wont anyone talk about the accident?" he asked me.

I immediately turned my eyes from his.

It was easy to explain why no one else liked to talk about the time when my mother died. But when Jacob asked me while looking at me like that, I felt like he was asking me why _I_ didn't talk about the accident. My reasons for avoiding the subject were very different than everyone else's reasons.

"No one likes to talk about it because no one knows what happened," I finally answered. I pulled my eyes away from the dreary clouds above and looked back to him, instead. "Do you remember it at all?"

"I remember that my dad was gone a lot, and everyone was always sad. No one would tell me why you weren't coming over to play anymore."

"Because no one knew where I was," I explained. "When Charley and the paramedics found the car and my mother, I wasn't there, and they couldn't find me."

"Where did you go?" Jacob asked.

"I don't know. I can't remember any of it. But I was missing for three weeks."

"_Three weeks_?" Jacob asked. "Where did they find you?"

"In my back yard," I answered.

"What?" Jacob asked. His eyebrows drew together, and a small crease appeared on his forehead. "You mean... you wandered around in the woods for three weeks and found your way home? How did you eat? How did you drink? How did you _not_ have hypothermia?"

"That's what makes it so weird," I explained. "I was sick and delirious, but I was clean, fed, and dressed in clothes Charley had never seen before. And there were bandages on my arm." I held up my hand so Jacob could see the old scars over my right palm and wrist. The scars remained from when I cut myself on the glass while escaping from the car, but because of the treatment I received, they were nothing but clean, fading lines.

"Then someone had you and was taking care of you that whole time?" Jacob asked, scowling. "They just kept you?"

I nodded. "It really scared a lot of people, especially Charley. I heard him talking about moving a couple of times..."

"That's really scary, Bella," Jacob told me.

"I guess. I don't think I was ever scared," I said dismissively. "So Truth or Triple Truth?"

Jacob released a loud sigh as he collapsed into the long grass beside me. I knew why he was annoyed. We played Truth or Triple Truth whenever we got in trouble for playing Truth or Dare. That morning, Billy caught us while we were trying to maneuver onto the roof of the house, and we had been literally grounded. Billy said we weren't allowed to so much as jump in place. Of course, without Dare, most of the fun went out of the game. Truth consisted of mundane questions, like which older Quileute would you kiss, and what was your most embarrassing moment? We already knew that sort of stuff about each other, and I had actually been present for Jacob's most embarrassing moment.

Triple Truth was where things got difficult.

"Triple Truth," Jacob answered.

"What was it like when _your_ mother died?" I asked. After all, he had asked me about my mother.

Jacob scowled at the sky, and the crease between his eyebrows became more defined. "It was horrible. I don't think I've ever been so mad about anything in my life."

"Mad?" I asked. This wasn't an emotion I had ever thought to associate with his mother's death. She had died of sickness.

"Yes, mad," he answered. "After the funeral, I heard some of the tribe talking, and they mentioned a doctor in Olympia who could have easily helped her. They said he was kind and understanding. They said he would have helped her even if we didn't have the money to pay for the treatment. But my father didn't take her to him, and no one else wanted to take her there, either. But if they had, she would still be alive."

Jacob was becoming upset. His breathing was becoming labored, and his hands were slowly balling into fists. My mind raced, and I tried to think of some way to console him. I tried to think of some reason no one would send Jacob's mother to Olympia. I couldn't think of no plausible explanation, though.

"I'm mad about my mother, too," I finally told Jacob.

"Why?" he asked halfheartedly, still preoccupied with his own anger.

"We were leaving," I told him.

This captured Jacob's attention. "What do you mean, you were leaving."

"We were leaving Forks," I clarified. "My mother had had a fight with Charley the night before. When she got up that morning, she was still upset. She was upset at Charley, she was upset at his job, she was upset at the house, she was upset at the weather, and she was upset at Forks. We got in the car and we started driving. All she could talk about was moving to a real city where it was always warm. She said Charley wasn't enough, and we were going to do better than rain and snow. I can't visit her tombstone, because it says loving wife. She was leaving without giving Charley any explanation, and she wasn't even giving him a chance."

"So you don't even like your mother?" Jacob asked.

"Oh, no. I love her. And she certainly loved me. I mean, she _really_ loved me. But the way she was leaving Charley was horrible, and I've never been able to tell him. He thinks she was taking me to Port Angeles for some shopping."

Jacob said nothing. He only watched me quietly. I turned my head to watch him back. Our faces were so close, I could focus on nothing but his eyes.

"Why did you ask about my mom?" I asked.

"Someone mentioned her at the bonfire last week," Jacob answered. He said the words absently, like he wasn't truly thinking about them.

"What is it?" I asked.

Jacob's had slid across the grass and held mine. A few long blades were trapped between our fingers, but Jacob didn't seem to notice. "I'm glad we're friends," he told me. "No one else understands."

I gave Jacob an easy smile. After all, I felt the same way. I would never talk to Angela or Samantha like this, and I could never bring up the subject with Charley. I was sure that Jake was the only person in all of Washington who could relate to my experiences in any way.

I heard the screen door squeak as it was opened, and I suddenly remembered that a world existed beyond the Jacob, beyond the grass, and beyond the gray sky above us.

"You better be cutting that grass and not laying in it!" Billy called out to us. I laughed as Jacob grumbled and sat up.

**Annoying Note- I looked through this, like, 5 times, so I hope it doesn't have too many mistakes. If there are, don't tell me about them because I don't care. :) **

**Okay, so I KNOW that Jacob's mother died in a car crash. For the purposes of this story, though, she was sick. Also, I know that Jacob has an older sister in the books, but we never actually met her, so she will be playing a very minimal part in this said, I hope you enjoy my twist on things. Also, I don't have the first two books as references, only the last two, so I don't know if I'll get every little fact strait (like the spelling of Port Angles. Is that what that town is called?)I'm still undecided about if this will be a Bella/Jacob or Bella/ Edward fic. I like Jacob more, but Edward is easier to write. I guess I'll see where this goes, and I hope you all enjoy!  
**

**Review, please!**


	2. Chapter 1

**Annoying Note- Okay, this is the first _real_ chapter. Enjoy.**

"How was your day?" Charlie asked as I climbed into his cruiser. He waved good-bye to Billy as I buckled my seat-belt.

"Good," I answered simply. My eyes found Jacob, where he was standing behind Billy. When our eyes met, they held. Because of Truth or Triple Truth, we now shared something. We had always been friends, as far as I could remember, and we had always gotten along, But now, it felt like there was a deeper connection there.

"See you tomorrow!" Jacob called, and I gave him a wave as we pulled out of the driveway and started driving back towards Forks.

I was a full 13-almost-14-years-old, but Charlie still insisted that I "be with someone and stay out of trouble" during summer vacations. Two years previously, it was horrifying when I was in sixth grade and Charlie was still looking for a sitter. I was saved, however, when Billy offered to let me stay on the reservation with Jacob during the summer. Charlie loved having me at Billy's for the summer because he knew I was outside with other children and he didn't have to pay someone to force the activity on me. I loved the situation because Billy left Jacob and me to ourselves and I felt independent.

"Enjoy it while you can, Bella. Enrollment is next week, you know."

I moaned, turning my eyes to the flashing forest beyond the road. Enrollment meant I only had three weeks left to summer. Worse yet, Jacob went to school on the reservation, so I only saw him on the occasional weekend during the school year. I hatted school for that reason alone. Being away from my best friend for nine months of the year was torture.

"What?" Charlie scoffed at me, "Aren't you supposed to be excited about high school? Jessica Stanley's mother told me she can't talk about anything else. "

"It will be exactly like middle school," I announced. "We even have some of the same teachers."

"Only the music teacher," Charlie told me, "And you don't play an instrument."

I shrugged, uncaring. I already knew my homeroom would include Mike Newton and Teddy Alder, just as it had every year since forever.

* * *

Jacob and I hiked along the road with our fishing poles in hand. The sun was shining for the first time in weeks, and it truly felt like August, rather than November. The pavement radiated heat and I wanted to dash into the shady underbrush of the forest. Usually, it was the other way around; I would pray to be out of the muddy, soppy forest and on the level, dry pavement.

"It's up there! Sam Uely brought a bunch of us here last year. It was great."

"Will it be hard to get to?" I asked, glancing into the forest. I could tell we were getting close to a stream, because the undergrowth was thickening. And the thicker the forest got, the more likely I was to be injured.

"We'll have to climb a bit to get to the good parts, but I'll be right here to help you!" Jacob said before I could run in the other direction. He took my hand and laughed as he pulled me along the road. "It wont be bad, I promise."

"And you'll grab the fish, right? I just have to reel it in and you touch it?" I vaguely remembered the last time Charley tried dragging me fishing. I was so freaked out when my father shoved the wiggling fish in my face, I fell off the boat. At the time, I had been furious at him for playing such a mean trick on me, but now I know that he was just overly excited about me catching my first fish.

"Of course," Jacob answered.

I nodded and continued to walk beside him.

We heard cars around the bend, so we moved to the shoulder of the road. We waved at a familiar maroon Chrysler as it passed us, and the woman inside waved back.

However, the silver Volvo that was trailing the Chrysler was not at all familiar. My eyes widened when I saw it, and Jacob froze.

"Now that," he told me, "Is a car."

I stood next to Jacob and sighed, my excitement of the unfamiliar immediately vanishing. When Jacob started talking about cars, he didn't stop.

"You definitely don't see that around La Push. The paint is custom, and it sounds like some modifications have been made to the engine-"

"Okay, Jacob," I told him. I resumed walking, kicking at the tiny pebbles scattered along the shoulder of the road. "You can just catch up to me later."

"Wait!" Jacob laughed, tearing his eyes from the car and running to catch up. He fell into step beside me and took my back-pack from my shoulder. I watched my younger friend as he threw the pack over his own shoulder. The strap caught some of his long hair, and he absently pulled the strands free.

"That's it," he told me, pointing. What he pointed to was a bridge, and what he referred to was the stream running beneath it. "We'll follow it upstream a ways until we find the eddy. We'll set up around there."

When we got to the stream, we veered off the road and followed a thin, well-beaten path up-stream. Jacob had to carry my pole and hold onto my arm for at least an hour until Jacob declared we had reached our destination. He allowed me to make myself comfortable on a broad flat rock which was directly next and a little elevated from the stream. He set the poles beside me and began digging through his bag. He pulled out some tackles and settled next to me as he straightened out the lines. Quickly, I pulled off my shirt, revealing a swimsuit. When Jacob saw me, he gave me a look. "You didn't come out here to fish at all, did you?"

"Of course not. It hasn't been this nice out in months. I came out here so _you_ could fish."

Jacob shook his head and continued with the lines. I took my time laying a blanket on the rock and setting lunch out to the side.

"I was wondering why that bag was so heavy!" Jacob laughed. "You know that's how we're carrying the fish into town, right?"

"Then we should make some room for them," I suggested, pulling out some small packets of chips.

Thirty minutes later, Jacob and I were seated comfortably by the stream, poles in hand and food in mouths.

"Have you enrolled in school?" Jacob carefully asked me.

"Not yet," I said morosely. "We enroll next week."

"We enroll tomorrow," Jacob told me. "You should come enroll at our school."

I laughed. "I'm going into high school, Jacob. I don't plan on repeating middle school."

"Oh. Yeah," Jacob said, disheartened. "Well then you'll have to-"

My line yanked and I was almost pulled into the stream. I teetered dangerously at the edge of the stream, and my heart began to race when I saw the rocky stream bed through the clear water.

Jacob caught my waist before I could fall, laughing. "Give me the poll! Give me the poll!"

Although Jacob was smaller than me, he easily held my waist and pulled me away from the water's edge. I did as he commanded and fell against the bank as he reeled in the fish with ease. He called, "Get the net!"

I scrambled to the rock and fished some crude netting from the bottom of the bag. When I ran back to the water, a fish was flipping just above the water.

"Get him!" Jacob yelled. I scooped the netting under the fish and pulled it around the animal. I stood triumphantly, showing him the fish. Then, I promptly fell. Jacob caught my arm and hauled me from the stream before the water could sweep me away.

"I kept hold of it! I didn't lose-" I proudly held up the netting, only to see that it was without a fish. Jacob laughed. He took my forearms and pulled me further from the stream. I sighed and passed the net to his hands.

"I'm sorry I lost the fish, Jacob," I said, sitting on the bank and slipping my feet into the water. Now, I was soaking wet, my loose hair was in my face, and I had lost the fish.

"Don't be so down, Bella. We've only been sitting here for ten minuets, we'll catch plenty today." Jacob plopped onto the rock beside me. "Besides, that was pretty funny, watching you fall all over the stream-"

"I could have been hurt!" I immediately argued.

"Not while I'm around," Jacob said with confidence. "I've been looking after you so long, I'm getting good at keeping you safe."

"You don't look after me! I'm two years older, so if anything, I look after you!" I laughed.

"I don't need looking after," Jacob said. "I can handle myself and the forest just fine."

I retrieved another bag of chips while Jacob put new bait on my tackle. We both recast our lines and stuck our feet in the water. We spent the rest of the afternoon like that: side-by-side, shoulder-to-shoulder, with our feet dangling in the cool water.

* * *

"I'm glad we managed to get this day in," Jacob said, his voice colored with disdain. I glanced at him, wondering why he was suddenly so moody. Then, a cool breeze ruffled my wet hair, and the sky became suddenly dark. A cold shiver ran up my spine and I groaned.

We had ended up having to use my shirt as a net, because I dropped the real net, so I was left walking in the suddenly cool air in just my wet bathing suit and shorts. Jacob wasn't much better off. We had used _his_ shirt to pack the fish in the bag.

We were trudging along the road, wet and now cold, when I saw a familiar truck coming our way. I waved, and the truck began to slow.

"You know him?" Jacob asked me quietly.

"Yeah. I'm in class with his son. And he owns the town camping store. He's a cool guy."

"Hello, Bella," Mr. Newton greeted as he rolled down his window. "What are you doing so far out of town? Do you need a ride?"

"Sure!" I told him. "This is my friend Jacob, and he was showing me how to fish upstream."

Mr. Newton gave Jacob a polite nod of acknowledgment, then said, "Good for you. So where do you want me to drop you two off?"

"You own the outfit store?" Jacob said quietly. "I do need a new net..."

Mr. Newton grinned. "Fantastic. I was just on my way. Jump in the back."

"Thanks, Mr. Newton," I called.

Jake and I climbed into the back of the the truck. The drive wasn't long, which was good considering the sudden drop in temperature. Jacob lounged across from me looking perfectly content holding the fishing poles and our bag of fish. The stream was closer to Forks than it was La Push, so we were parked outside the surplus store in just a few minuets. Jacob and I unloaded our things onto the curb before heading into the store.

As we were going in, I knocked into the door. I bounced off it and looked up. Only it wasn't a door I saw, it was a tall, bulky man. Up close, he seemed like a mountain.

I blinked up at him, and then studied myself. I seemed unharmed, so I looked up at the man again.

"Sorry," I told him, a blush rising in my cheeks. "I really wasn't watching where I was going and-"

"Are you hurt?" He asked me.

My blush deepened, and I looked down at myself. I was covered in light bruises, but those were from falling in the stream all day. My encounter with this mountain-like man left me undamaged.

"No," I told him.

I studied the young man. He was tall and handsome, with deep brown eyes and pale glowing skin. He was almost as wide as the door, and I wondered at the fact that I hadn't broken a bone when I crashed into him. I looked down at myself one more time, just to make sure.

Then, I noticed the bags in his hands. He was carrying several sleeping bags and a tent. Trying to distract from my extreme awkwardness, I asked, "Are you here to camp for the weekend? You came to a great place. Just to the North there are some really nice trails."

He smiled at me and my eyes widened. It was like seeing him for the first time. He was _gorgeous_. "We're going to go camping, sure. But my family just moved here. Our father was transferred to the hospital and we're just getting settled. My name's Emmett Cullen."

"I'm Bella, and this is my friend Jacob. He lives in La Push."

Emmett's eyes shot to Jacob as my friend stood from our bag of fish and moved towards me. When Jacob saw Emmet, he scowled. "Cullen, you said? As in Dr. Cullen, the famous surgeon in Olympia?"

My eyes narrowed and I looked from Emmett's raised eyebrows to Jacob's scowl. "Olympia?" I asked.

"Emmett, what's-"

A girl with spiky black hair nudged Emmett aside. Her skin was like his, and they had the same eyes, so they were obviously related. And she was just as beautiful as he was. As I studied the girl, I felt a strange sense of deja vu. "Do I know you?" I asked.

"This is my sister, Alice," Emmett told me. "Alice, this is Bella Swan."

"Bella," Jacob said beside me. His voice was low and quiet, and I was distracted from the two exotic new people. My friend's eyes were low, and he was finicking with a tackle he was holding. "We should hurry to get a cooler for the fish, so they don't spoil."

"Is something wrong?" I asked quietly. "Did something happen to the fi- Charley?"

I watched as my father's cruiser pulled into the lot across the street from us. "Jacob, Charlie's here! We can have him drive us back to La Push," I said, waving to get my father's attention. He waved back to me as he stepped from his cruiser, then he began to move across the street.

"What are you doing here Bella? And where is your shirt?" he asked, scowling.

"Jacob and I went fishing, and we had to use my shirt as a net. Mr. Newton drove us into town."

"Did you put fish in your school bag, Bella? I thought you were going on a picnic!" Charlie sighed.

"Charlie, we caught nine fish."

My distraction did the trick, and a huge smile stretched across his face. "Finally putting that pole I got you for Christmas to good use, huh? Did Jacob help you?"

"Yeah. I actually only caught three fish, and Jacob had to take them off the hook for me," I explained. "Dad, can I stay at Jacob's house tonight? Quil and Embry are coming over, and Billy said I could help him cook the fish."

"I don't know, Bella," Charley said, his eyes flickering to Jacob. "Will Rebecca be there?"

"I guess," I said. I didn't understand why she mattered. I would be hanging out with Jacob, not her. Besides, she was older than me, and she had her older Quileute friends to hang out with. She didn't want to hang around her younger brother and his friends.

My dad shook his head, and his eyes slid past me, to the amused eyes of Emmett and Alice.

"Are you the Cullens?" Charlie asked. He moved around me and held his hand out in greeting. "You had a safe drive, I hope?" he asked as Emmett shook his hand, and the beautiful siblings nodded.

"You're Swan?" Emmett asked.

Charlie nodded. "Chief Swan."

My eyes darted to a frowning Jacob as the three made introductions. I pinched his arm and his frown turned to me.

"Let's go inside," I mumbled.

"So where's your father?" Charly asked the Cullens. "I was planning on driving by and seeing how you were doing. I hope-"

I took Jacob's hand and pulled him into the store. I drug him over to the tackle display and turned to face him.

"Can you convince Charlie to let me spend the night?" I asked.

Jacob gave me a slow smile. "Of course. Billy will talk him into it. Especially after I tell him about the Cullens."

"What about them?" I asked. I remembered what Jacob told me about his mother. Then, Jacob knew Dr. Cullen. Was this be the man who could have helped Jacob's mother? Was that why Jacob was upset at meeting the doctor's family?

"Shush, Bella. Not here. We'll talk later. You go get a cooler and ice. I'll find a good gutting knife."

**Annoying Note- Okay, it was kind of a boring chapter. But whatever. I guess I'm in a boring mood. Plus, I need to introduce the characters and Bella's new situation somehow. I tried to keep people in character. I'm not sure how to write Emmett, though, just because he's not a supper major character in the book. Even Rosalie gets a bigger part than he does, and he's the teddy. I never did like the thought of Bella and Edward meeting right off the bat. **

**Anyways, Review, or something bad will happen... to my ego. Haha. I love corny jokes. Review!**


	3. Chapter 2

**Annoying Note- Here's chapter two for you. Enjoy.**

* * *

I turned off the tap and handed the last plate to Jacob. Quill poked his head into the kitchen.

"Hey, guys. My ride is here."

"Is Embry still outside?" I asked him.

"He's getting his bike. See you at enrollment tomorrow, Jake. Bye, Bella."

"Bye," Jacob and I coursed.

We waved bye to Embry though the back window before finishing up the dishes. Jacob fell into a kitchen chair and patted his tummy. "Good fish, Bella."

I rubbed at my eyes and told Jacob, "I'm getting ready for bed. Can you steal a shirt from Rebecca for me?"

"One of mine will fit you," he answered. "She doesn't like me going into her room."

"Okay. Where should I sleep?"

"My bed. I'll make up the couch while you're in the bathroom," he told me as he yawned. "Want to watch a movie before bed, or-"

"Sure," I consented, moving towards the door. "It's your turn to pick."

I took my time dressing and entered the living room ten minuets latter. Jacob was lounging across the couch, already watching the previews. I made myself comfortable on the floor, leaning against the couch. Billy came into the room to check on us, and when he was sure we were settled he told us, "Goodnight, kids. Don't stay up too late. Jacob, you have enrollment in the morning."

Jacob rolled his eyes, "Sure, sure."

"Good night, Billy," I called.

A couple minutes into the movie, I asked Jacob, "How did Billy convince Charlie to let me stay?"

Jacob shrugged, "I don't know how Billy does anything. He's the tribe chief, you know? I'm sure that means he's all knowing and all persuasive."

I laughed. That was a good way to describe Billy Black. When he tells us stories, he tells them like he was there. When we were younger, Jacob and I fully believed he _was_ there, just because of the emotion and passion he put into the stories. And don't get me started on his "persuasive abilities." Jacob was the only person I knew that didn't immediately react when Billy snapped his fingers. That wasn't to say he didn't eventually react, he just fought the urge to obey as hard a possible.

When I turned around from my place on the floor and looked up at Jacob, I saw he was frowning.

"What's wrong, Jacob?"

"I've been thinking, and I just wanted to warn you; stay away from the Cullens, Bella. They're bad news."

"What?" I asked him. "Emmett seemed nice enough, and... Jacob, does this have to do with your mother?"

Jacob was silent. His hands were so stiff, his knuckles were turning white.

"Jacob?" I asked quietly. "Are you okay? What's wrong?"

"I just understand now. I understand why no one would send her to Cullen. And it makes it that much worse."

Slowly, I moved to the couch beside Jacob. "What made you understand? Why is it worse?" I asked quietly.

"I was so angry that they didn't send her to him. I've blamed my father, the elders, even my mother herself. I always... I blamed them for her death. I've acted on my anger so many times, assuming they killed her... And now I agree with them. I'm happy they didn't send her to those people. They're bad, Bella. They can't be trusted." Jacob's eyes bore into mine, an unfamiliar emotion making them dark. "Don't ever trust them, Bella."

"Jacob, why are you so worried about me? They didn't seem to-"

"You didn't see how they were looking at you, Bella!"

I leaned away from him, surprised. "How were they looking at me?"

Jacob sighed and shrugged. "I don't- I can't explain it, Bella. I just know that they're bad. And I don't want them to hurt you."

"I can handle myself perfectly well, thank you."

Jacob's face split into a welcome grin and he laughed. "Yeah right! You can't even take care of a fish!"

I gaped at him, surprised by his sudden change of mood. When I processed him words, I cried, "I can, too! I caught three fish!"

"Yeah, and you let them get away!" Jacob laughed, and I laughed with him.

* * *

I met Carlisle Cullen just two days after Jacob's warning, when I sliced my hand while learning to skin a fish. The cut ran across two fingers. It wasn't bad and it wasn't deep, but I saw blood. Ifainted and hit my head while going down.

One of Jacob's neighbors drove me to the hospital, and Jacob looked after me. He wrapped my hand and gave me the ever familiar concussion quiz. "What's your name? What's my name? Where do you live? What color is your house? How old are you? What's your favorite color? How many fish did you catch on Monday?" How pathetic was it that my younger best friend was so used to this that he didn't even really need to take me to the doctor anymore?

"Is my head bleeding?" I asked Jacob.

"No, Bella. You've just got a nice bump. I think you'll be okay."

He held my hand in his. At first, I thought it was because he was trying to be reassuring. Then, I realized it was the hand I had sliced open, and he was keeping me from seeing the blood. The little twelve-year-old brat really did know how to take care of me.

The receptionist in the ER greeted me by name when I was shuffled into the hospital. When Jacob explained what happened, she gave him a severe look, "Jacob Black, you know better than to put a knife in her hand."

He shrugged, "I thought it would be fine. She's great with veggies."

She shook her head and told me, "Head for A3, Bella, and make yourself comfortable. I'm sure you can find your way."

"Yes, ma'ma," I said sheepishly.

After I was sitting down, Jacob told me, "I'm going to call your dad, okay? Just hold tight and don't look at your hand."

I nodded and laid back on the bed, closing my eyes then-

"And don't fall asleep! If you have a concussion-"

"Okay, okay," I mumbled, dragging myself into a sitting position.

"I'll be back in a second," he told me as he moved through the curtain.

The doctor came in a minuet latter.

"Okay, Miss Bella Swan. Let's take a look," Carlisle demanded as he came into the room.

He sat in front of me and gently took my bandaged hand.

"And how did this happen?" He asked me quietly.

"She cut her hand and fainted," Jacob spoke from the door. I jumped, surprised. I hadn't noticed Jake reentering the room. Carlisle, however, was unaffected as he unwrapped the bandage from my wrist.

"You fainted?" He asked me carefully.

"Yeah. I kind of react to the sight and smell of blood. I hit my head, too," I answered, blushing at my own clumsiness. I watched Jacob come fully into the room. He sat next to me on the bed and took my good hand.

Carlisle laughed, "You don't go half-way, do you?"

My blush spread.

The coolness of his hands felt good when they passed over the bruise on my head.

"I can see why you were concerned," Dr. Cullen told us quietly. "Your hand doesn't look bad. You might need a butterfly bandage, but it will be easy to patch you up. Are you dizzy or nauseous?"

"No, sir. I have a head-ache."

"That doesn't sound out of place. You'll need to take some aspirin and put some ice on it. Then I'll just need to bandage up your fingers. Make sure to wash the wounds and keep them from getting infected. Do you think you can do that for me?"

"Of course."

He gave me a bright, dazzling smile and I smiled back. "You be careful, Bella. I don't want to see you in this hospital for at least five months."

I right out laughed at that. "You'll be lucky if you don't see me in another five weeks!"

He set a hard, heavy hand on my shoulder as he picked up my injured hand. "Hopefully not that soon."

"Hopefully not," Jacob grumbled from the door.

**Annoying Note- Well, there it is. So whatever. It's moving kind of slow, but I'm afraid that if I try to write a more entertaining story it will turn into one of those obnoxious stories that isn't at all thought out or anything like that, so... Forget that. I'll do it the slow boring way.**

**Review and I'll give you candy.  
**


	4. Chapter 3

**Annoying Note- I think this chapter is a little short, but don't worry- I've already written a couple more chapters of the story, so I'll be updating pretty quick.**

It began raining while Jacob and I were still walking along the beach. My flip-flops sunk in the sand and rain pelted against my borrowed rain-coat.

"I found it last weekend, when Charlie took you to Port Angeles," Jacob told me as we marched towards the cliffs.

"Is it dry?" I asked.

"Yeah. But we'll be soaking wet by the time we get there. We might have to swim some if the waves are big," he answered, turning a critical eye to the sea. The weather wasn't bad, and I couldn't imagine there being big waves. The rain was cold, though, so I hoped we wouldn't have to go into the water.

When we got to the cliff edge, we began walking into the ocean while staying next to the cliff's held onto my arm as I waded into the shin deep water. My flip-flops were slippery against the ocean rocks. Jacob led me along the bottom of the cliffs, knowing just where to step, and he told me where to go.

"Okay. So far, we've been walking on a shelf that's part of the cliff. The shelf is covered in water, and it suddenly drops off a few feet to your right. In front of me, the shelf drops off completely, so we'll have to essentially scale the cliff if you don't want to get wet," Jacob explained. I followed him as he climbed a foot above the water and began to shuffle across the bottom edge of the cliff.

"Okay, now we climb strait up," Jacob told me. "Don't worry if you fall. There's nothing in the ocean below us.

We began to climb. Within a couple of minutes we were on a shelf, and I was looking into a dark hole set in the cliff side. Jacob pushed me forward, and I climbed into the cave. The cave was only about 15 feet deep, but at the end, it was wider. Jacob and I settled ourselves in the cool but dry space.

"Cool, huh?" Jacob asked me. He moved next to me, providing warmth. "Can you believe no one knows about this place?"

"I'm sure someone knows about it. It's not that far away from the beach," I pointed out.

Jacob shook his head. "There are quite a few caves on the top of the cliff that are easy to get to, so no one cares about anything down here."

A loud whistling wind blew through the cave. My hair whipped around my face and my eyes darted towards the entrance. It was still raining and dark outside, so only a meager amount of light was showing in the cave.

"Are you cold?" Jacob asked. When I nodded, he moved his arm around me and pressed our sides against each other.

"I saw the Cullens yesterday, at enrollment," I told Jacob quietly.

"How many where there?"

"Five kids. They have a big family."

"Did you talk to them?"

"No," I sighed, remembering handsome and silent family which stood behind me in line. "I couldn't talk to them."

I could feel his eyes on me, but I don't know what he saw of me in the dim light. "If I had better grades, they might let me transfer to Forks," he told me.

"Why would you do that?" I asked him.

"So you would have someone looking out for you."

I scowled at Jacob's shadow, "I can take care of myself, you know? Besides, who are you going to protect me from? You're a shrimp." I poked Jacob's skinny ribs. "And you're about two feet shorter than everyone else. You'd be squashed in seconds."

"I'll grow," Jacob told me stubbornly.

"Of course you will, Jake," I told him, patting his knee.

"Just be careful, okay? I know they seem nice, but they'll hurt you if you get close. "

"And what do you know about them that I don't?" I asked Jacob.

"You've been to the bonfires, Bella. You've come to every bonfire this summer, and every bonfire last two summers. I know the stories aren't new to you. There's nothing I know that you don't."

"Stories? You mean those horror stories your dad's been telling since we were little? You're kidding, right? Those are about monsters and demons and _spirit warriors_."

I could feel Jacob's disapproving frown in the dark. "Those are the stories of my past and people, Bella. My ancestors have been telling those stories for hundreds of years. They may sound stupid to you, but they mean everything to us."

I sighed. "I know, Jacob. I'm sorry. I really didn't mean it like that. But how can you be so superstitious? Are you really trying to suggest that the Cullens are monsters?"

"It's probably best you don't believe," Jacob said stiffly. "The elders tell us not to talk about it to anyone. I just thought that since you were practically part of the tribe, you would understand where I come from."

I looked down at the shadow of my knees, feeling like an ass-hole. I loved hearing those stories. I always had. Storytelling was my favorite part of the bonfires. I was always the only person there who wasn't a Quileute, and I felt like the tribe was letting me see something special. But I had only seen them as fun stories. Not as a true history of the people. Did everyone else believe the stories were true?

"I'm sorry, Jacob," I told him. "I'm really sorry. I just..."

I saw the shadow that was Jacob move, and I felt him shrug.

"Vampires, Jacob? Really?" I asked.

Jacob laughed. The sudden sound surprised me. "Well when you put it like that, it does sound ridiculous. But think about it, Bella. It makes perfect sense, and it's not just superstitious nonsense. When you see them at school, watch them, and you'll understand."

"Okay, Jacob. I promise I'll consider it."

I was suddenly in Jacobs long skinny arms and he was hugging me. "I knew you'd understand, Bella. I knew it."

I hugged Jacob back, enjoying his warmth against my cold wet legs.

Then, Jacob shocked me. He leaned into me and pressed his cheek against my cheek. Soon after, his nose gently bumped into my nose. By the time his lips touched mine, I was almost expecting the touch.

I sat in shock as Jacob separated from me and retreated back to his place against the cave wall.

"What was that for?" I asked, breathless.

"It was for understanding," he told me quietly. My heart began beating again.

**Annoying Note- Okay, there it is. I really liked this chapter.**

**Review! Do as I say!**


	5. Chapter 4

**Annoying Note- Wooooo chapter four! Or five. I don't know. I'm loosing count.**

"Thanks for taking care of me, Billy," I said morosely. I dipped down to give Billy a hug.

"Hey!" Jacob protested, "You hardly even see him! I'm the one who keeps you busy and takes you places and feeds you-"

"Oh, _you _feed _me_?" I snorted. "And just who do you think taught you-"

"You didn't teach me anything!" Jacob laughed. "Everyone knows how to fry a good fish! You just added some of your fancy herbs and-" He began to back away as I advanced towards him.

"I'll show you- didn't teach you anything- come here Jacob Black!"

Charlie caught my shoulders as I chased Jacob past him. He hugged me, laughing. "Okay, Bella. I told you to say good-bye to Jacob, not to kill Jacob."

"Come on, do I have to? You're bringing me back next weekend, right?" I begged Charlie.

"Maybe," he told me.

I sighed and turned around, walking into Jacob's arms.

"See you around, Bella," Jacob told me.

"Bye. Have fun at school. Tell me when the next bonfire is. I want to come."

"Sure, sure," he told me, and gave me one last bear hug. As he leaned into my ear, he whispered, "And remember what I told you."

"I will," I told him. "See you in a few days, Jake."

The drive to forks was silent until Charlie spoke.

"I know Jacob is your friend, Bella, but you need to make time for your other friends. You've hardly seen Angela or Samantha at all this summer, if at all."

"Samantha spent the summer with her dad in California, and Angela went to camp."

"Summer camp sounds fun," Charlie told me. "Maybe you'd like to do something like-"

"No way," I told him. "Nothing beats La Push."

"And that's fine in the summer, Bella, but you can't expect to spend all your time down there during the school year as well."

"Dad, I do stuff with Angela all the time," I sighed. "I don't ignore my friends. Besides, Jacobs not just _a friend_. He's my _best friend_. Angela and Samantha and Conner and all them are cool, but we just don't click like Jake and I do."

My dad muttered darkly under his breath.

"What?" I asked pointedly.

"Nothing- I mean, I guess it's nice that you and Jacob are so close. He's just so much younger than you and-"

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"Nothing, nothing. Jacob's a great kid. I just don't know if I want you following him around La Push all the time."

"Whatever," I mumbled.

* * *

"They're gorgeous," Jessica told us. "The cute one- Edward- sat in front of me in Math class." Suddenly, Jessica's mood darkened. "I tried to talk to him, and he was perfectly polite. But that's all he was- polite."

"That's the vibe I got when I talked to Alice," Angela added.

I looked down and blushed when I thought of my own encounter with Emmett earlier in the morning. I bumped into the overly-large sophomore that morning when Charlie dropped me off at school. I passed by Emmett as he was pulled some books from the back seat of his jeep. When he spotted me, he quickly locked his doors and fell into step beside me.

"Hey, Bella," he greeted.

I craned my head to look up at him. His muscles strained through his shirt and I wondered, just for a second, how strong he would be if he truly was a vampire.

Then, a loud car-horn tore through my thoughts. I jumped and once again lost my balance. Emmett caught me so easily that he had me on my feet and facing Charlie's cruiser before I even knew I was falling.

I stared blankly at Charlie as he waved my Literature textbook at me. Finally, Emmett gave me a little push towards the street and my feet began to move.

"Have a good first day of high school," Charlie demanded.

"Right," I told him, still a little dazed.

Emmett was waiting for me with a grin when I returned to the parking lot.

"Thanks," I mumbled at him as we began walking again. I made the mistake of meeting his strange eyes as he smiled at me, and I felt a blush flare across my cheeks.

"Is he your dad?"

I gave him a look, "Well yeah. You met him the other day at Newton's Outfitters."

"Oh, I know. When you called him by his first name, I thought he was just a close friend."

I shook my head. "No. He's my dad."

When we walked through the school doors, we waved good-bye and went our separate ways. I didn't see any of the Cullen's again until lunchtime.

Two of the five entered the cafeteria together and quickly found their places in line.

"Rosalie and Jasper. Hale. Don't they have the most romantic names?" Jessica supplied.

The entire lunchroom seemed to pause and watch the two gather their food, pay for their meals, and then make their way to a table. People held their breaths as Jonathan Grove, a popular junior, stood to offer the pair seats at his table. Their reply was quick and polite. They didn't even stop walking. Instead, they found a quite, secluded table in the back of the room, somehow set away from the rest. When the last three family members entered the room, the process was repeated with the same results.

"There he is," Jessica announced, "Edward. He's the one I met."

Jessica was right in pronouncing Edward "the cute one." I couldn't pull my eyes away from him as he gathered his food and walked across the cafeteria. His hair lay in a fashion I was unfamiliar with, and I had never seen a boy walk the way he did. His fingers were long, his skin was pale like the rest of his family's. When Alice spoke to him, the corner of his mouth rose in a minute smile, and I worked to memorize his expression.

"You okay, there, Bella?" Angela giggled in my ear.

My attention snapped back to our table and color rose in my cheeks. I was grateful that Angela was the only one to notice the over-intent of my stare. However, I found that my focus was easily hidden; every curious eye in the cafeteria was turned towards the displaced table in the back of the room.

Angela gave me a wink and leaned close to gossip in my ear. "Everyone's talking about how the big one walked you into school."

"Emmett," I mumbled.

"And it wasn't the first conversation you had with him?" She raised a suggestive eye-brow, the expression ridiculous on her usually innocent face. We both laughed. We went quiet when several eyes turned towards us. When we were calm and our companion's attention returned to the Cullens, Angela continued.

"Bella, you're the only one they've talked to. You have the hook-up. Why do you think Jess is sitting with us today?"

I gave her a look.

"I mean besides her quarterly buddy-buddy act," Angela pressed, rolling her eyes. "If you keep this up, even Lauren will be crawling your way."

"You're very opinionated today," I told her pointedly.

"The influence of my camp-friends. I'm enjoying my post-summer confidence before it wears off," she told me, and I grinned at her.

"How was camp?" I asked her, my voice returning to its normal volume.

"Oh, where did you go to camp?" Jessica asked loudly.

* * *

I leaned forward, pressing my stomach into the desk and tapping my toe against the floor. My pen cap lay chewed and mangled at the corner of the desk and I was now working on the pen itself.

"It's impossible," I announced, and Angela glanced up. Her expression was just as desolate as the look I was sure to see on my face. "I thought I could handle a geometry class," I told her, "but this looks intense!"

"I could help you."

I started, my muscles tensing so much they spasmed. I turned around to stare at Alice Cullen, who was in the chair behind mine. I had been completely unaware of her presence in the classroom, and it startled me that she could so easily sneak up on me.

"We were a little ahead at my old school," she informed me. "Plus, I've been helping Emmett with his math for years."

I started at her with wide eyes, and then I glanced around the classroom to make sure our teacher wasn't a fish and the students weren't slugs. After confirming that I was not dreaming, and Angela in fact did see the beautiful girl sitting and talking to me, I turned back to Alice.

Her expression was smug and amused. "Well?"

"Um," I looked at the syllabus, seeing nothing but list after list of complex equations and foreign vocabulary. Someone more familiar to the material would be very nice. But what if she really was a vampi- "Sure," I gasped, cutting off my train of thought. It was such a ridiculous notion. "That would be great. Thanks."

My wide eyes met Angela's, and her mouth dropped open.

**Annoying Note- Okay, this was a really slow chapter (in my opinion). Therefore, I'm probably going to post chapter five(or six, if this is actually chapter five) latter today. I can't remember what I wrote next, so if _that's _a slow chapter, I'll add another chapter. I don't know. It depends on how much I have edited. Because I have a butt load written, and the part I'm working on now is fun, so whatever. Ack, I don't know what I'm talking about anymore. I should go take a nap. **

**Okay, review and I'll add another chapter latter today.**


	6. Chapter 5

**Annoying Note- Another chapter, just as I promised. **

"How was the first day?" Charlie asked from the table as I scooped some spaghetti onto his plate.

"Fine," I told him. "Boring, just like every other first day. Nothing but rules and regulations."

"Did you see the Cullens?" He asked absently as he skimmed a police report.

"Yeah," I answered, pushing some papers out of the way and putting my own plate on the table.

"I hope you helped make them comfortable. Moving to a new schools is always hard."

I didn't see how it could be so hard for the Cullens. It wasn't like they were alone. There were five of them. Plus, it wasn't every day or even every year a new kid came to Forks, and the entire school went out of their way for the new kids. No, it was the Cullens who set themselves apart and separated themselves from the other students.

"What are you working on?" I asked. Charlie didn't usually bring work home. In fact, the only time work came into the house was through the wires connecting the telephone to the wall.

"Hum? Oh just some strange reports. Something's going on in La Push and it has people acting up."

"Oh," I mumbled.

Charlie suddenly looked up at me. "Has Jake said anything to you, Bella?"

"No. Why? What is it?"

Charlie shook his head and went back to the paperwork. "No matter. I'm sure Sam Uley's crowd is too old for Jacob."

Sam Uley? Sam Uley was always around. He'd been to every bonfire, every cookout. He loved hanging out and teaching the younger kids about woodcarving, hunting, and fishing. They _were_ his crowd. He was the older brother to every kid in La Push.

"Yeah," I agreed uneasily. I fished a couple extra meatballs from the sauce pan and plopped them on Charlie's pile of spaghetti. I figured the food would keep him occupied long enough for my absence from the kitchen to go unnoticed.

I set the food in front of Charlie and took the phone from its receive before I shuffled up to my room and dialed Jacob's number.

One of Jacob's sisters answered and she quickly passed the phone on when I requested her brother.

"Hey, Bella. Was school so horrible that you had to call me straight out of the box?"

"What's going on with Sam? Charlie is doing paperwork for La Push at the dinner table."

"Oh." Jacob's voice was flat. "That's why you called?"

"No, Jacob. Of course not. I was worried about you!" I groaned and fell onto my bed.

"Why would you be worried about me? Sam's the one who's freaking out and messing stuff up."

"Charlie said it's got a lot of people stirred up, and then he mentioned the crowd Sam runs with, and you're the crowd he runs with, so I thought you might be hurt or something. Has he said anything to you?"

"It's nothing like that, Bella. I think Sam's just going through some moods. He was really sick for a few days. And now... Well, he's had a really short temper lately, and he's gotten into a couple fights with Leah... People are just worried about him. He's always been a really nice guy. He's like a big brother."

"Will he be all right?"

"Sure he will. And don't worry about me, Bella."

"Thanks, Jacob.

"Of course. You're still coming this weekend, right?"

"If Charlie agrees to drive me out of Forks," I said sourly. "He's using the price of gas as an excuse, as if the station doesn't pay for his cruiser."

He laughed, and the sound snapped me out of the mood I had gotten into when Charley mentioned La Push. If Jacob was laughing, then everything was fine and I didn't have to worry about him getting into trouble with Sam Uley.

* * *

Emmett smiled at me as he slid into the booth across from me. I hurried to wipe some sauce from my chin and swallow the food in my mouth.

"Hey, Bella," he greeted.

"Hey," I mumbled, hurrying to straiten myself up. On the other side of the diner, a couple upperclassmen turned fully in their seats to take a good look at Emmett and I. When they turned back around, their heads were close together.

"Are you doing anything this weekend?" Emmett asked me. "Jasper, Alice and I are going to a movie in Port Angeles. Do you want to come with us?"

I tucked the flimsy restaurant napkin in my lap before answering. "Actually... Sorry, but I have plans with my friend Jacob. You met him at Newton's."

"Ah, the boy from La Push," Emmett nodded. "You two spend a lot of time together?"

"Of course. In the summers, at least. Jacob's my best friend," I said easily. I could gush about Jake for hours. "We try to hang out during the school year, but Charlie wants me to use the time to focus on my school friends, and Billy can't drive yet. Plus, when the weather gets bad, the roads going into La Push get kind of dangerous, so we don't catch each other as much. But during the summer, I go out there every day. We usually just hang around his house or the beach, but this summer Jake taught me how to fish. I still can't bate my own hook or take the fish off, but Jake's father, Billy, taught me how to gut and cook the fish, and it's always fun to just hang out with Jacob."

At the end of my rant, I looked into Emmett's amused eyes and I realized that I had only been talking about Jacob and fishing. Emmett probably didn't care for either of those subjects. Really, he had only asked me a simple question which I could have answered with a simple yes or no.

"You should come hang out with us some other time, then," Emmett told me, giving me a large smile. "You'll love Alice once you get to know her.

"Oh, sure," I agreed.

"Your dad seems really cool. He went by the hospital to make sure Carlisle was getting settled-"

"You call your father by his first name?" I asked. "Didn't you say the other morning-?"

"Oh," Emmett laughed. The sound was like thunder, and it sent vibrations up my spine. "Carlisle isn't actually my dad. He and his wife, Esme, adopted me and my siblings. If you hadn't noticed, we all have a similar skin condition."

"Oh, yeah, I thought it was just genetics," I mumbled, embarrassed. They had a _skin condition_, probably some kind of disease, and I was running around calling them vampires.

"Nope. Child services thought it would be beneficial to place all of us with people who had the same condition. We all immediately loved each other, and it did turn out to be much easier than living with regular families, so Carlisle and Esme adopted us. The age difference makes it weird, because Carlisle is more of a brother than a father, but it works out okay."

I nodded quietly and cast my eyes around the restaurant. I recognized a pair of sophomore girls across the diner who were blatantly staring at us.

It was odd, wasn't it? Why did the Cullens like me and no one else? Was it because I was the first person they met when they came to Forks? Or maybe... maybe they recognized themselves in me. What if I had the same skin condition they did, only on a much smaller scale? I was always very pale... even when I went sun bathing this summer, my skin returned to its normal pale tone after the sunburn receded.

Wait, no. I didn't have an _skin condition_! First the Cullens are vampires, and now I'm alergic to sun? Right then, I decided my imagination needed to be kept under check.

"So, what happened to your parents?" I asked him, trying to distract myself from my vivid imagination. When my brain processed the words that left my mouth, I flinched.

"Car crash," he said quickly. His tone was almost dismissive.

"Mine, too. My mom, I mean," I said, struggling to find solid footing in the conversation.

"I'm sorry," he told me. One of his large, cold hands reached across the table and covered mine. "That must have been horrible."

"Yeah," I agreed.

"I'm lucky- I was too young to remember my parents. I lived with some relatives until they couldn't support me anymore. Then Carlisle found me. He spoils us," Emmett told me.

"Do you move often?" I asked. I was now very curious. As long as we were sharing our stories, I might as well dig into his background a bit.

"Yeah," he said, shrugging. He removed his hand from mine, and I blinked. I hadn't even noticed it was still there. His hand on top of mine felt oddly comfortable.

"That must be hard," I answered.

He shrugged. "Not really. It's not like we're out to make friends. We have each other, and that keeps us plenty busy."

"Funny. That's exactly what I've been trying to explain to my dad! I know he likes Jacob a lot, but it's like he wants me to be the popular kid in school and have a million and five friends. But Jacob is so much cooler than half the people in this town. And his friends are fun. They're always just hanging out and they have the coolest old stories. And he's really mature for his age, so even though he's younger than me, it seems like he's older, and I completely forget that he's still in middle school. I don't _need_ other friends when he's around!"

I realized I was talking about Jacob again, so I stopped.

"My family is like that, too," Emmett told me as if I hadn't just gone on another tangent about Jacob. "I bet you'd like them. Have you even met Jasper or Edward yet?"

"No. Alice sits behind me in math, though."

"She's a real trip, isn't she?" He asked, grinning. He suddenly stood. "I'll see you tomorrow at school, Bella. It was nice talking to you."

"Yeah, bye!"

Emmett strolled from the diner and out of site. When I saw the two sophomores still staring, I picked myself up and hurried to the cash register. But before I could begin digging into my pockets, the cashier told me, "Oh, your meal's already been paid for. That handsome young man sitting with you took care of everything."

Blushing, I hurried from the diner and into the rain.

**Annoying Note- I hope this chapter was satisfactory. I like it, myself. I put in a little Cullen action. Still no Edward action, but I'm kind of on an Emmett stint.**

**Stay tuned in, kiddies. There's still more to come!**

**Oh, and Review. Right now. Or now. Or now is okay, too. **


	7. Chapter 6

**Annoying Note- I am alive!**

Settling into high school was easy. As I predicted, it was just like middle school and everyone soon fell into their usual routines. Within days, Jessica grew bored of sitting with Angela, Samantha and I. She moved back to Lauren's table and took all of her chatty friends with her. Soon after, Mike and Conner joined our table and we were suddenly a "crowd," or at least Charlie called us a crowd.

The Cullens remained aloof and beautiful to everyone in the school except for me. Emmett was correct in suggesting Alice and I would hit it off. Our friendship began when Alice started helping me with my homework during study hall. But soon, we were meeting up outside of school, as well. I was careful to never be completely alone with any of the Cullen's because Jacob made me promise to always be with them in public. The more time I spent with Alice or Emmett, the more I began to believe in Jacob.

Sometimes, I would just stare at the way their skin sparkled and I would begin to wonder at their beauty. Other times, I would study their graceful movements. It seemed impossible that the bulky Emmett would be able to move so fluently, and Alice seemed to flit wherever she went. Then, there were the rare times when the three of us would do something together. Every now and again, Emmett's eyes would meet Alice's, and I could tell they were speaking without words, as if they knew each other so well, so completely, they knew what the other was thinking without having to voice their thought. Considering everything they had going for them-- their beauty, their grace, their money, their lifestyles, their amazing family-- the connection I sometimes saw between them was the only thing I was ever jealous about.

I hardly ever had contact with the other Cullens, beside the times I saw Dr. Cullen at the hospital. It wasn't until the school year was almost into its second month when I ran into the beautiful Rosalie. And that's all that happened; I smacked into her one day while I was moving to get into the lunch-line. Rosalie didn't so much as flinch. She simply kept moving without acknowledging me.

On my semi-weekly calls to Jacob, I kept him informed of my opinions.

"I really think they are vampires," I told him in November. "But they aren't monsters like the ones in the Quileute stories. I mean... They're so nice, and Alice really cares for me. How can a vampire care for a human? Wouldn't they want to suck my blood or something?"

"They might think of you like a pet," Jacob supplied, and I made a face at the receiver. "And of course they drink blood. It's what they do. You know, I bet they take those blood donations from the hospital, since Carlisle has access to that kind of stuff. Maybe that's how they don't kill people."

"It's wild, isn't it?" I asked wistfully. "I wonder how old they are?"

"Really old," Jacob told me, "I mean, I'm sure if they drink right before they leave for the day, their urges aren't so strong. Still, thought, they must want to just go crazy and eat everyone they come across. They have to have had a lot of experience to keep the urges under control."

"Shut up, Jacob Black. You don't have any idea what your talking about," I laughed, and he did too. "Do you _really, really_ think they're vampires?"

"Of course I do," he told me. His voice was suddenly tight and nervous. "I don't know if you should keep hanging around them, Bella. It could be really dangerous."

"But Alice is my friend," I argued. "And I am careful. I'm really careful to never be alone with them. We always go hang out someplace really public."

Jacob gave an irritating sigh. His breath sounded like static through the telephone. "That doesn't mean anything, Bella. If they want to get you alone, they'll do it."

"Well then that settles it," I announced. "They aren't trying to kill me, because they've never even _suggested_ leaving public eye."

"That's not what I meant," Jacob protested, "and you know it! You're twisting my words! Besides, this is exactly what they want, Bella. They want to lure you into a false since of security so that they can-"

"Hush, Jacob. Don't be so paranoid. Besides, I've already made up my mind. If Alice offers to drive me someplace, or if Emmett invites me to meet his family, I'm going to agree!"

Jacob cussed quietly and I rolled my eyes at his fit. "I'll call you latter, okay? Just to assure you I'm alive."

* * *

The large bed engulfed me. It was even bigger than my parent's bed, and they got to sleep in a double. I leaned back cool, smooth pillows and pulled the soft covers almost up to my eyes. I happily let the bed swallow me.

Right after I made myself comfortable, lightning flashed through the large glass wall to my left. I tensed, waiting for the blast I knew would follow. The thunder sent vibrations through the old house, and I was sure the entire structure would fall to the ground. Whenever I got this familiar feeling in my tummy, I always ran to my parents room. Sometimes, I didn't even have to wake them up. I just crawled between them and fell asleep.

Then, from the corner of my eye, I saw a familiar shadow. It shimmered at the edge of the candle's light, and my tummy immediately settled. I let the familiar presence wash over me and took the offered comfort. Nothing calmed me like-

-thunder shook the house and I bolted upright in bed, looking around frantically. The pounding was no long coming from thunder, like in my dream. Now, it was coming for the hallway. I moaned, flipping out of bed. I went to the hallway and stood in the doorway as I watched my father sprint by my door.

"Bella! Why are you still in your pajamas?" He yelled. "We're late!"

"Late? My clock says it's only six in the morning," I argued.

"The power went out last night!" Charley told me.

I was scrambling around my room before he could finish his sentence, throwing on some jeans and a sweater.

"And Bella, it started snowing last night so wear an extra coat!" Charlie yelled from the kitchen. I hardly paid attention to his words, trying to remember the fifty things I did to prepare for school which I only had maybe five minuets to do, as opposed to an hour and a half.

I only calmed when we were half-way to school and I was stuffing a muffin down my throat. Charlie glanced at me and laughed. "You could have brushed your hair, Bella."

Terrified, my hands went to my head. Half of my hair was smooth and flat, the other half was knotted close to my head. Before I even had time to look at myself in a mirror, we were pulling into the school parking lot. I sighed in defeat as we parked at the curb. My normal state of dress was bad enough. I hardly needed my hair to match.

"Try to have a good day, Bella," Charlie told me.

"Thanks," I mumbled unhappily as I got out of the car. I hurriedly tried to flatten my hair as I went into school.

**Annoying Note: I have now read the last book. Blah. My outlook on Twilight has completely changed since I started writing this story. Thankfully, this new outlook has allowed me to come up with a good ending. Be happy that I am no longer wandering aimlessly thought this story! Hazzah! Anyways, I know this is short, but the next chapter will be longer, and more interesting.**

**So keep reading.**

**And Review! Review! Review! Review!**


	8. Chapter 7

"Hey Alice," I greeted with a yawn. The beautiful maybe-vampire slid into the desk behind me with a frown.

"Bella, what on Earth is wrong with your hair? It looks like a bird is living in it," Alice said with disapproval.

"My alarm didn't go off this morning. I forgot to brush my hair in the rush to get out of the house on time," I mumbled unhappily. I began dragging my fingers through my hair in an attempt to flatten it.

"I don't know what you would do without me, Bella," Alice informed me.

I fully turned to look at her. "What?"

She reached into her designer purse and pulled out a brush.

"You carry that in your purse?" I asked, surprised. Alice nodded and made a circling motion with her finger. I turned around and allowed Alice to run the brush through my hair.

"I had a feeling it would come in handy," she told me. "You have such gorgeous hair, Bella. You should wear it up more often; pull it out of your face."

I blinked as Alice suddenly pulled my hair into her hands. She put a barrette in my hair before I could register what she was doing. When she finally pulled her hands away from my head, I reached back to feel the barrette which now held my hair in a half pony-tail. I felt deep rough ridges and could only assume that she had put something very gaudy and sparkly in my hair.

I turned to look at Alice with a frown. "I take it you just happened to have this in your purse as well?"

"Actually, it's Rosalie's. And she had it in her locker," Alice said smugly.

"Your hair _does_ look nice when it's up, Bella."

I blushed and hid my face from Angela. I saw her wink at Alice from the corner of my eye and I frowned. Why was Angela winking at Alice?

"You know what would be really fun, Bella?" Angela asked.

"What?" I asked her, glancing nervously between the two girls.

"It would be fun if we went shopping this weekend," Angela suggested, and I moaned as Alice nodded in excitement.

* * *

"There's some chicken left in the fridge," I told Charlie. "And remember to pick up your medication from-"

"I _know_, Bella. I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself. As long as your cooking is in the fridge, everything will be fine," He told me playfully. "Now go have fun with your friends."

"Yeah, Bella. Come on," Angela urged. "Alice and her brother are waiting in the car. Bye Mr. Swan. I put my home number of the fridge, and Alice's cell is under it!"

"Thank you, Angela. You girls have fun," Charlie waved as Angela pulled me towards the door. As we passed the living room, I grabbed my overnight bag and pillow from where they sitting at the bottom of the stairs. Once I had my sleep-over supplies in hand, I followed Angela out of the house.

"Whoa," I murmured, floored by the car parked in my driveway.

"Come on, Bella. They're waiting for us," Angela pressed. I remember that she she had already been in the car and was no longer surprised or curious about such a show of wealth.

Angela and I slid into the backseat of the slick new Corvette. The car was moving before Angela even closed the door.

"Bella," Alice turned around in the front seat to look at us, "This is Jasper."

Jasper's eyes met mine in the rear view mirror. His eyes were the same honey hue as the rest of his family's.

"Hello, girls," he greeted.

"Jasper's going to be our pack mule tonight," Alice declared. "He'll carry the bags."

"Oh," I said, surprised. "You don't need to do that, Jasper."

He smiled at me through the mirror. He really was handsome. Not as handsome as Edward, of course, but he still-

"It's fine, trust me. I needed a reason to get out of the house. Edward has been driving everyone insane. Besides, I've been wanting to meet you. Alice and Emmett talk about you all the time."

Heat rose to my face, and I briefly wondered what they said about me. When my eyes met Jasper's, I was once again reminded of Edward. Had they told him about me? Had he asked about me? Did he even know I existed?

I began to see signs of the city pass by the window, and I briefly wondered how fast we were going. The drive to Port Angelas usually took twice as long.

"So what should we do first?" Alice asked, turning around to look at Angela and I.

"Let's do our hair, first," Angela suggested.

"Hair? I thought we were just going shopping for new shoes or something like that," I said. I glared pointedly between the two girls.

"Oh, Bella, I'm sorry," Angela laughed. "We _had_ to let you think that."

I groaned. I should have seen this coming. Angela had tried to take me on a big shopping spree once a year every year since sixth grade. I took it in stride. I really didn't mind following her to every major department store in Port Angeles and watching her try on outfit after cute outfit. I usually found two or three outfits that I was perfectly happy with and that was that. This was different, though. I could tell. We had never _gotten our hair done_. And no boy had ever had to come to carry our bags.

"You need some new cloths," Alice told me. "You don't need to go around wearing a twelve-year-old boy's shirts anymore-"

"Hey, that was only once," I protested. "And it was so I would remember to give it back to him when I went to La Push that afternoon!"

"And face it," Alice demanded. "You can only wear a certain shirt so many times in so many years before you just need to give up on it."

"We'll have fun, Bella," Angela assured me. "It's nice to get dressed up every once in a while. And I won't let Alice get too carried away."

* * *

I had to admit, my long hair looked nice with gentle layers and dark high-lights, and the sweater Alice chose for me fit my body perfectly. Plus the form-fitting jeans weren't terribly uncomfortable or as obscene as I initially assumed. When I looked in the mirror, I actually looked like a teenage girl, rather than a slightly feminine boy with long hair. I briefly wondered when my body began to curve like that. It couldn't have happened in the two minuets it took me to change in the dressing room.

Alice looked amazing and beautiful in her new faux-fur lined coat, and Angela had a cute new scarf wrapped around her neck.

"Now we have to go out," Alice was explaining to me. Jasper trailed behind us with our bags in hand. I felt incredibly guilty that he was carrying my bags, but I didn't voice my opinions. He really didn't mind, and Alice would just scoff at me anyways.

"Out?" I asked. "What are we doing right now?"

"This isn't the same. Now, we're just shopping. But when you put your hair up and get a new sweater, you have to show yourself off. And don't worry, we're not doing anything unreasonable. I thought we'd just go out for a nice meal."

"Oh, can't we go to Stephano's? They're the best," Angela begged.

Stephano's was a little pricey, and we'd already spent so much money. I'd just spent a months allowance, and Alice payed for the haircuts. Then, she bought Angela and I an entire outfit on top of everything else, putting me even more in dept to the girl.

I opened my mouth to argue, but Alice beat me to it.

"Stephano's sounds perfect! It will be Jasper's and my treat! We'll just drop the bags off at the car first."

I vehemently wanted to protest, but Angela looked so excited and Jasper agreed as well. Therefore, I kept my mouth shut and dragged my feet to the car. I didn't want to be the party-pooper, and this was the last activity we would be doing before going to spend the night at Angela's house.

The restaurant was beautiful and very atmospheric. We let Angela take the reins. She knew exactly where she wanted to sit and which waiter she wanted to serve us. I looked around the restaurant with wide eyes, and my gaze landed on Alice, who looked comfortable and at ease walking through the up-scale environment. Then, for just a split second, her eyes were unfocused. When her expression cleared, a huge smile spread across her face and she beamed at Jasper.

"Your table."

As Angela stopped in front of me, I knocked into her.

"Whoa. Careful, Bella," Jasper instructed. He took my arm and set me steady. His hands were strong and cold. They felt exactly like Emmett's and Dr. Cullen's hands, only smaller.

"Sorry, Angela. I spaced out for a moment."

"It's okay," she told me, and she slid into the booth. Alice slid in next to her. Jasper and I sat across from them.

Angela and I were talking about what meals we would order when I remembered that the Cullens were vampires. Was it physically possible for them to digest food?

"Will you be eating?" I asked Alice.

"No," she told me easily. "Jasper and I ate before we picked you up. Our skin condition means we need a special diet."

"Then why do you buy food at school?" Angela asked. "Why not bring your own lunch?"

"We also have to eat on a schedule, and lunch doesn't fit with it. We buy school food because teachers and students get uneasy if we don't."

I laughed. "They're more uneasy that you buy food and don't eat it."

Angela gave me an odd look from across the table and I caught myself. For a second, I forgot that I was the only one in on the whole vampire secret.

The restaurant was wonderful, and the food was delicious. I did, however, feel really weird when Jasper pulled out some money and paid for the meal. I mean, he hadn't even touched his glass of water. Once again, I didn't voice my displeasure.

We were walking back to the car when Angela began to sway.

"I need to sit down. I think I ate something I didn't agree with," she told me when I took her arm.

"Oh, no," I said sadly as I led her to a bench. When she sat down, she placed her head on her knees. "We should probably get you home and in bed," I told her.

"No, It'll ruin the sleep-over!"

"Don't worry about it, Angela. We can always do it some other night."

"But Alice and I were going to do your nails and we had all these cool movies picked out to watch and-"

"You really had this planed out, didn't you?" I laughed.

"-now it's all ruined. It was going to be perfect!"

"We should get you home," Alice suggested. "We can call Carlisle and have him take a look at you."

"Do you think you could handle a car?" I asked Angela. She nodded dejectedly and I helped her stand.

* * *

"Sorry I ruined the night," Angela repeated for what had to be the thirtieth time. I sat on the edge of her bed as Carlisle felt her pulse. I briefly wondered how he could manage being so close to blood.

"It's fine, Angela," I told her. "You just need to rest."

"Hey," Angela said, suddenly excited. "Maybe you and Alice could have a sleep-over anyways. You don't need me to have a good time."

I was startled by the suggestion.

"Angela, that's a perfect idea. Bella can spend the night at my house and we'll be able to spend time with you next weekend," Alice spoke up.

I blinked at the eagerness in her voice.

"Would that be okay, Carlisle?" Alice asked. "Bella can stay in my room."

"That's fine, Alice," Carlisle said absently. "Angela, I don't think you have food poisoning at all. I think you have the flu. Bella, have you had your flu shot this year?"

"Yeah," I mumbled.

"Well, Angela, where's your mother?" Carlisle asked as he stood. He didn't wait for an answer. I assumed he left so quickly because he knew exactly where Angela's mother was located.

"Will you be okay?" I asked Angela.

"Of course I will, as long as you and Alice go have a fun night. Alice, I have an entire manicure kit if you still want to do nails."

"Oh, that's okay," Alice told Angela. "Rosalie has a closet full of nail polish. We'll be okay. I just hope you feel better soon."

"Girls," Carlisle called from the bottom of Angela's stairs. "Let Angela go to sleep. She has a rough night ahead of her."

I sighed and stood. "I'll call you tomorrow, okay Angela?"

She nodded and smiled. "At least I got in some good shopping, and you two will still have a fun night."

Right. We'll have a fun night at Alice the Vampire's house.

**Annoying Note- Look! Look at that! Stuff is finally happening in this story! Isn't it so exciting? Not the story itself, I mean, but the fact that it's beginning to move? Lol. I hope you liked it. **

**Review!**


	9. Chapter 8

I was sweating from nerves by the time we were off the main roads and driving through a darker, much more secluded area outside Forks.

"What's the matter, Bella?" Jasper asked me from the driver's seat. I bit my lip, wondering how I was supposed to bring up the whole vampire thing.

"I, uh, have a couple of questions," I told the two in the front seat. "I mean, I know some stuff."

"Stuff," Alice said quietly, and her eyes met Jasper's for a moment. Then, she turned around and looked at me. "You know about us, then? How?"

I nervously sat on my hands. "You aren't going to kill me, are you?"

Alice laughed. "We're not like that, sweaty."

"You are vampires, though, right?"

Jasper and Alice met eyes again, and Jasper told me. "We are. How did you know?"

"The Quileutes have a lot of old stories. I've listened to them since I was a little kid, and I always thought they were horror stories. Then we met Emmett, and Jacob hated him," I explained. It occurred to me that I was nervous as all heck, and my explanation might not make sense to the two.

However, the seemed to get the gist of it, and Jasper quietly asked,"So you've known this entire time?"

"Well, yeah."

"We should call Carlisle and tell him to come home from work," Alice told Jasper

"You're still not killing me, are you?" I asked. If anything happened to me, Jake would be _very_ angry, and it would be my own fault for getting into a car with the Cullens and then confronting them about their species.

"No, Bella. We don't kill humans. We're calling a family meeting because we need to talk to you," Alice told me. "And _then_ I'll do your nails."

The house stood in the dark. Light spilled from every window except for one, where I saw a shadow obscuring the light. The porch light was on as well, and it illuminated a wrap-around porch. I recognized Emmett's large frame sitting on the front steps. He gave me a familiar grin and waved when he saw us pulling into the drive way.

"Carlisle will be here in a bit. He was still in his car and driving back to the hospital when we called," Alice told Jasper and I. "Do you want something to eat, Bella?"

"You have food? I thought you didn't need to eat."

"We try not to have people over often, but we do have to keep up appearances. It would be a little odd if a family of seven never went to the grocery store. And now you're here, so you can feast."

Jasper parked and we climbed from the car.

"Hey, Bella," Emmett boomed from the porch steps. "It's about time you finally came around. We've been trying to get you out here for months."

"I know. Jacob made me promise not to be alone with you, though," I nervously explained. I wished I could stop talking about Jacob. I felt like I was somehow incriminating him by bringing him up all the time.

"We'll explain inside, Bella," Alice told me. "Jasper, take Bella's things to our room. If she sleeps at all, she'll sleep in there."

"If I sleep?" I asked as Alice led me into the house. She led me into a beautiful front room, and I gaped at the lavish furniture.

"Yes, if. As vampires, we don't sleep. Bella, my life has been one endless day. Besides that, this is kind of my first sleep-over, and I intend to take full advantage of it," Alice informed me. "We have an incredible movie collection, and you can gorge on all the junk-food you want."

Alice's plans did sound rather fun. I had the occasional sleep-over with Angela and Samantha, of course, but we hadn't done something like this in a long time. That's why Angela was so excited about tonight. She was all set for a real girls night out, not one of those foo-foo middle school sleep-over's where we talked about nothing but boys. Don't get me wrong, we were still planning to talk about boys. Only now, we were in high school and we were adults, so we would have _serious_ conversations about boys.

"Bella, sit down. We have a lot we want to ask you and... We have something to tell you, as well," Alice told me. "First, though, you should meet Esme. She's Carlisle's wife. You'll love her."

I did as Alice said and made myself comfortable.

I heard a car in the driveway and footsteps coming down the stairs. Within moments, I was in a room full of vampires. I stared at them in awe. It had been a long time since I had seen them all in one place. Now, I was the only human in the room, and I felt like they were cornering me.

Alice sat down next to me and explained the situation to her family. She put a cold hand over my knee, and I immediately relaxed at the familiarity of the touch.

"I guess we've been worried for nothing," Alice told them. "Apparently, Bella's know about us since the beginning."

Rosalie's eyebrow rose. "She remembers?"

"No. She grew up with the Quileutes. She knew we were vampires the entire time."

"But she doesn't remember?" Rosalie asked again.

"Remember what?" I asked her.

"That's what we wanted to talk to you about," Carlisle told me gently. "You've met us before, a long time ago. Forks is one of our favorite homes. We can only stay here for a few years every few decades, but we stay in this house for a few days whenever we pass through. Bella, we were passing through area eight years ago, when you were in that accident. Jasper was out hunting and caught your scent."

I glanced at Jasper, my eyes wide. "Like... You were hunting for blood?"

Jasper nodded, looking uncomfortable.

"Your scent was faint enough that it didn't overpower him, and he came to get me," Carlisle told me. "By that time, I think you'd been in the forest for a few hours and you were hurt and panicked. Of course, wondering around in the forest and in the rain didn't do you any good. Besides the injuries you received during the wreck, you had received others, as well. So we took care of you. Of course, we weren't supposed to be in the area, and there were still some people alive in the town who were old enough to remember us from our previous visit. We couldn't tell your father we had you, because we weren't supposed to be alive."

I remembered the strange sense of deja vu I felt when I first met Alice. I realized she had never answered my question when I asked if I knew her. And it would explain why the scars on my hand had healed so nicely, if a doctor as great as Carlisle had taken care of me. Still... "Why can't I remember any of this?"

"Well, we kept you asleep most of the time," Carlisle told me. "And then towards the end of your stay with us, you became very sick. It was an ideal opening to take you home to your father so you could continue on our way. We wanted to stay with you, but we needed to build new identities. We needed to enter your life the right way."

I couldn't wait to tell Jacob about this. I had always been uncomfortable with the fact that he didn't like the Cullens. What would he think when I told them they could be trusted, and they had taken care of me after my mother died? They had even made sure I got back to Charley. It would have been so easy for them to just take me, or kill me, or turn me into one of them. But they hadn't. Instead, they had stayed for me, even though it wad dangerous for them.

I glanced around the room, overwhelmed by their beautiful stares. My eye's locked with Edward's hazel eyes and our gazes held for just a moment. Then, I looked at Alice.

"I guess you weren't joking about that special diet, then, were you?"

She and Jasper laughed, and I was confused when Edward gave a small grin.

I glanced at the older woman who I assumed was Esme. She gave me a soft smile. "I'm Esme, Carlisle's wife."

Wife?

I glanced at the group again, a thought suddenly hitting me. "You aren't siblings at all, are you?"

When I realized I had spoken the thought out loud, I clenched my teeth and blushed. Of all the revelations I could have had, this one seemed like one I should have experienced before I even figured out they were vampires. Alice grinned and shook her head. "Not so much, no."

* * *

Alice and Jasper's room was beautiful, and everything was covered by a soft gauzy fabric. Strips of green, blue and purple cloth covered the windows, and a fluffy blue rug lay on the floor. A large bed stood in the corner of the room. The mattress was covered by a purple down quilt. Purple mesh drapes surrounded the bed. Similar cloth in different colors were placed in other areas of the room; it was used to frame a large mirror as well as the door and closet. The mesh could be found on lamp shades and covering the top of a dresser. The effect was beautiful and awesome. It felt as if I was in some underwater paradise.

"Which movie do you want to watch first?" Alice asked as she passed me on the way into her room. I watched speechless as Alice moved swiftly across the room. She stopped in front of an elaborate curtain and pulled on a long cord. The curtain opened up to show a small alcove which housed a couple hundred DVDs.

"Anything sounds good," I murmured. I jumped when Jasper set his hand on my lower back, pushing me further into the room.

"Your room is amazing," I told him when I turned to look at him.

"It was mostly Alice's work. I did, however, convince her to switch one of the highlight colors from pink to green," Jasper told me with a gentle smile.

"Yeah, and he cheated," Alice told me with a sour face.

"Cheated?"

"Yeah, he used his persuasive powers against me," Alice accused. When she went to stand by Jasper, she accusingly poked him in his side.

I blinked, then blushed. I'm sure she didn't mean it in a sexual way, but when dealing with two people as beautiful as Alice and Jasper, I was unable to think of any other kind of persuasion. When Alice caught site of my blush, she burst into giggles.

"Bella, some vampires have special abilities. I, for example, can sometimes have visions of the future. Jasper can manipulate emotion."

Her words only caused my blush to deepen. I couldn't believe that I had even thought- and it was even worse that Alice was almost reading my mind. Still, what was I supposed to think? And why else would two beautiful people who never had to sleep have a bed in their room and-

Alice's words caught up to me. Abilities, she said. Visions of the future, manipulate emotion.

It shouldn't have surprised me. After all, I was talking to vampires. But the idea of abilities wasn't something I was prepared for. Jacob had never mentioned anything about this, none of the Quileute stories mentioned anything about this. Apparently, I didn't know as much about the Cullens as I thought I did.

"Bella, you go scrounge around the kitchen for some snacks. I'll go get some polish from Rosalie," Alice suggested. I absently nodded and wandered downstairs to the large kitchen. I glanced around room and admired the warm yellow paint before my eyes went to the back wall. It was made of five long floor-to-ceiling windows, and there were no curtains.

I hated looking through windows at night. I knew that there was probably a tree or some bushes not ten feet from the house, but I couldn't see them. I couldn't see anything, and I was unable to picture anything besides an endless darkness beyond the well lit house. It didn't help that I had the feeling that someone was hiding in the forest, looking in on me.

Then, I thought I saw movement outside and my eyes widened. Was there someone out there? Could they see me? Were they watching me? I saw the movement again and I was sure; there was someone outside.

I pushed away from the counter and looked around the empty kitchen. The house was silent, so I went to the big glass back door and opened it. It was snowing outside, and some cold air blew some flurries into the kitchen. I stepped onto the back porch and the darkness wasn't so absolute anymore. Light from the kitchen reflected into the snow and lit the first layers of forest.

"Hello?" I called. "Is someone out there?"

"Yeah," a familiar voice called from the woods, and I immediately relaxed. It was only Edward.

"What are you doing out here?" I asked him as he stepped out of the forest and into a spot of light. He looked beautiful in the dim light. He had no body heat, so snow was collecting in his hair and on his shoulders.

"I'm getting wood," he told me, and I noticed an axe in his hand. "This house is kind of old and, well, we haven't gotten around to making some basic renovations, such as central air and heating."

"But the house is warm. How-?"

"We have a wood burning furnace in the basement," he said as he began to walk towards me. "Inside, please. Carlisle would shoot himself if you got a cold under his care."

Edward took my upper arm and gently pushed me into the house. His hand was so cold it almost burned, and I hurried to do as he said.

"Are you cold?" Edward asked me. "I can make you something." He vaguely gestured to the stove.

I shook my head and watched as he set the axe outside, closed the back door and toed off his soggy shoes.

"What is Alice planning for the night?" Edward asked.

"I don't know. I mean, Alice is getting a movie ready."

Edward nodded, as if already knowing this.

"You can- I mean, do you want to watch it with us? Jasper's hanging out up there, so I'm pretty sure it's not an all girl thing." It felt odd inviting Edward to an event in his own house. I briefly wondered if he would have joined us, anyways.

"Sure," Edward told me, and he gave me a gorgeous smile. "What did you come to the kitchen for?"

"Food," I told him. I thought it was pretty obvious, since it was the kitchen.

Edward smiled again, "What kind of food, Bella? I can help you find what you want."

I blushed. "Oh. Right. Um, I guess I was just going to get some chips and something to drink. Pop, I guess. To keep me awake."

Edward's movements were quick and swift as he pulled out a bowl for chips, and he had gathered food for me in seconds. Of course, he was a vampire. He had super strength and super speed, so he would be able to do everything quickly. And he was supper cute, so he could do all this while looking very atractive.

I shook these thoughts from my head. I leaned against the counter, trying to look composed and relaxed, which was exactly how I was not feeling. I still wasn't sure what I was supposed to think of the Cullens. They obviously weren't going to hurt me, and Alice was one of the most fun people I'd ever met. However, I was cowed by their beauty and power. I didn't understand where I fit in, or why they came back to Forks.

I wasn't complaining, though. I planned to take full advantage of their interest in me. If it meant I got to spend time with someone like Edward, I would very gladly attend every sleep-over and try on every designer dress that Alice thrust in my direction. I was already formulating reasons I could spend more time with Edward.

"What are you looking at?"

I blinked. Edward stood in front of me holding a bowl of chips and a chilled drink for me. I was so startled that I said the first thing that came to mind.

"You've still got snow in your hair. It hasn't melted."

Edward laughed and leaned forward, shaking his bronze hair a bit. Several flakes of snow drifted to the floor.

I couldn't stop myself. I was helpless as my hand acted of it's own accord and reached towards Edward's head. I dipped my hand into his hair and ruffled it, simultaneously felling the texture and sending a shower of snowflakes to the floor. His hair was perfectly curled, and it was soft despite of a rough underlying texture I could detect. I knew that if I pulled at his hair, not a strand of it would come loose in my hands.

When I realized what I was doing, I yanked my hand away and put it behind my back. A horrible blush rose to my cheeks as Edward looked at me, grinning. "Did you get it all?"

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. I wondered where my courage came from and why it had suddenly disappeared.

"Fantastic. Now lets get upstairs. Alice is starting to get irritated."

I scowled, my previous actions forgotten. "Irritated? But you haven't even seen her," I pointed out as I followed him from the kitchen and into the hallway.

He glanced back at me, scowling. "Didn't Alice tell you? I thought I heard her..."

Edward stopped walking and turned to face me. "Some vampires have special abilities. Jasper, for example, can read and manipulate emotion. Alice can sometimes see the future."

"Yeah. She told me that," I told Edward.

"But she didn't tell you about me?"

"I guess it didn't really come up. Do you mean that you can do stuff like that, too?" I asked Edward.

"Yeah. I can hear people's thoughts."

My eyes widened in wonder. Then, when the full impact of his words hit me, I gasped in horror. I'd just spent the last five minuets with him thinking of nothing but his beauty and the texture of his hair. This had to be the single most embarrassing moment of my life.

"You mean," I said quietly, "You just heard me thinking..."

"No," he said morosely.

Suddenly, I was quiet confused. "You mean you _didn't_ read my mind? So you can turn it off, then?"

"Not exactly," he said. "You're kind of the exception to my abilities." He almost sounded embarrassed and more than a little disappointed.

"So you can't read my mind?" I asked.

Edward shook his head. "I don't hear a word."

I sighed in relief. Edward studied me for a moment, and then a grin spread across his face. "What had you so worried, then? What were you thinking that you didn't want me to hear?"

I blushed furiously, blood rising to my cheeks. "Nothing," I mumbled. "I wasn't thinking about anything."

He laughed as I pushed past him. His laughter was probably the most lovely sound I had ever heard.

When we arived in Alice's room, the four of us settled on the soft thick rug in front of her TV. I sat with Alice on one side so she could do my nails and Edward sat on my other side. He kept my bowl of chips in his lap, even though he didn't eat any. By the time we were half way though the third movie, I was half asleep and unwilling to move from my comfortable place on the floor. At one point during the second movie, Jasper had moved to my side and Alice lay easily and comfortably between his legs. It was beyond obvious that they loved each other, and had loved each other longer than even my father had lived. My pillow was propped against their outstretched legs. My own feet were in Edward's lap. He had gotten me a blanket and draped it across me. Now, his hand held my ankle through the blanket. I found the circling movements of his thumb soothing, and I fell asleep to thoughts of his cold marble skin and warm laugh.

**A/N (Annoying Note) - I AM ALIVE! Sorry I haven't updated in so long. I don't know what happened to make me completly forget about this story, especialy because I've found about 20 pages I've writen but haven't posted. Well, I hope I can make it up to you with these six pages. Oh, I've also gone through and revised the first seven chapters. I've especily chaged the first three chapters to better display Bella's and Jacob's relationship and make Bella a little more in character. After reading through it, I realized I had writen her as being far too bubbly, and I didn't like it, so I actually deleted a lot of her dialoge and made Jacob a little more assertive. I don't think I've changed any of the plot, though, so... whatever. **

**Review and tell me what you think. Oh, and I've only looked over this chapter once, and I understand that there are probably some editing mistakes, so don't get on my butt about that stuff.**

**Oh! And I've finaly figured it out! It's Port Angeles, not Port Angels! Go me!**

**REVIEW!  
**


	10. Chapter 9

**A/N: For this chapter, keep in mind that in the previous chapter, the Cullens never explained to Bella that they drink animal blood, so she's still operating of the fact that they drink human blood. Anyways, here it is!**

"Hello?" I asked into the receiver.

"What happened?" was Jacob's greeting.

I immediately set my pencil on top of my homework, and my eyes flew to Charley, who was parked on the couch and watching a game, his eyes unmoving.

"Oh, hey Jacob," I answered while trying to keep my voice level.

"Well?" he asked. "_What happened_?

I wanted to tell Jacob exactly what happened, but I couldn't say anything with Charley sitting right there. The man's attention may have been on the game, but he wasn't completely oblivious to my movements, and he would definitely notice if I stood and took the phone upstairs.

"Oh, I don't know. I'll have to check the calendar," I finally said, standing from the chair and walking towards the kitchen.

"What are you talking about? Why wont you answer my- Oh my God. They did something to you, didn't they? Bella, just hold on and I'll-"

I reached the kitchen, closed the door behind me and quietly snapped, "Chill, Jacob! Charley was in the room!"

Jacob let out a long breath of air. I realized he was truly relived, and he had honestly been assuming the worst. I rolled my eyes at this assumption. I thought of waking up that morning in the exact same position I had fallen asleep in. My pillow had been pressed against Jasper and Alice, and my legs had been spread across Edward's lap. They had stayed in that position for seven hours while I slept. I guess one of the positives of being a vampire was that their muscles didn't cramp up if they sat in the same position for too long.

"So it was okay, then?" Jacob asked me. "Alice didn't try anything while she was at Angela's house?"

A sinking feeling entered my gut. I remembered that Jacob didn't know that I had spent the entire night at the Cullen's house. Before I had left to hang out with Angela and Alice, Jacob had been talking about safety in numbers, and as long as it was one vampire to several humans, it would be fine. I wondered how I would tell him that the position had been switched, and it had been one human with seven vampires.

"Jacob, I've got news," I told him. "I mean, I've got _big_ news. Too much to talk about over the phone. I'll see if Charley can drive me out to La Push-"

"It's my sister's birthday, her friends are all here."

I groaned. "I _have_ to tell you about this, Jake!"

"One minuet. I just saw Sam's car pull up. He'll drive me over."

"Sam Uley?" I asked, doubtful. "Didn't you say he'd been-"

"He's cool again. He was just in a weird mood for a while. I'll be over in a bit," Jacob declared, and the other line went dead.

Well this was new. Because Billy couldn't drive a truck, he was never able to drive Jacob up to Forks. I always went to La Push. I tired to remember if Jacob had ever been in my room-

My room! It was a mess!

I hurried to put the phone back in its receiver so I could hurry to clean up my room.

"Was that Jake?" my dad asked.

"Yeah," I answered. "He's coming over."

My father's attention was immediately drawn away from the game on the television. "Jacob is coming here?"

"Yeah. One of his older sisters is having a birthday party at their house, and he wants to get away from her friends for a bit," I told him.

"How is he driving out here?" Charley asked.

"Sam Uley-"

"He hangs out with Sam Uley?" Charley asked.

"No. He's just getting a ride from him. When I asked him about it, he said that Sam was just acting weird for a few days, but now he's gone back to normal, so it's okay."

"Well Sam Uley isn't going to be hanging around with you and Jake-"

Was he?

"No!" I told my father.

Charley settled back into the couch. I could tell he wasn't satisfied with the situation, but his game was in the last quarter, and the announcer's voice was becoming louder and more animated. "Just make sure your room is clean."

"Of course," I said, then I rushed upstairs to my room.

At first, I concentrated on my room. But then, my mind began to wander as my body went into autopilot and I automatically did the familiar chores around my room..

Would Jacob be upset? Yes. He would be _very_ upset. But I could tell him that the Cullens had met me before. They had taken good care of me when I was young, and they had taken good care of me the previous night and that morning. And it wasn't like they were lying to me. They even told me about their _abilities_.

And _would_ Sam Uley be staying? What was I supposed to do with that guy? He was Jacob's sister's age. Wasn't that the age where you didn't want to hang out with fifteen-year-old girls and thirteen-year-old boys? I mean, sure, I knew the guy. I saw him around bonfires. Did he expect to hang around while Jacob and I had a private conversation about vampires? Would he just- just leave Jacob here? How would Jacob get back to La Push, then?

How angry would Jacob be? What happened if Sam _did_ just leave Jacob behind? What if Sam left Jacob, then Jacob became really angry at me? What if he became so angry, he didn't even want to look at me, and what if he wanted Sam to immediately take him home, but Sam wasn't there, and I would be forced to sit with an angry Jacob-

I halted that train of thought. I recognized that I was compiling everything which could possibly go wrong into one horrible nightmare, and I had lost the real question.

Would Jacob be angry? I didn't remember Jacob ever becoming angry before in my life. Sure, we had our little tiffs. We had at least one each summer. This summer's had lasted four entire days, partly because I had made other friends in La Push so I was able to go elsewhere and avoid him, and partially because part of the tiff took place over the weekend, so we didn't see each other for two days, anyway. I didn't recall actually fighting with him, though. We never yelled at each other. Jacob never yelled at _me_. And on Monday, when I'd knocked on Billy's front door, it was like everything had magically fixed itself over the weekend. We weren't _able_ to be upset at each other. It just… wasn't possible.

Slowly, I calmed down. Jacob wouldn't be _angry_ at me. Not after I explained what happened and told him everything I had learned the night before. With this thought in mind, I became more confident, and instead of worry over how upset Jacob would be, I worried over how to phrase my confession.

Of course, all of my courage fell apart when I heard the doorbell.

Jacob _would_ be angry at me.

Sighing at myself, I hurried to stand at the top of the stairs. Charley had already put the game on mute, and he was opening the door.

"Hey, Jacob. Sam," he greeted.

"Hey, Charley," Jacob answered from the front stoop. When he saw me standing at the top of the stairs, he rudely pushed past Charley and started towards me.

"Hey Mr. Swan," I heard Sam say in greeting. At least, it sounded like Sam. The man who let himself into my house looked nothing like the Sam I was familiar with. He had to be a foot taller than the teenager I had seen at the bonfire that summer. He wore a long-sleeved button down shirt, and his muscles were bulging in the shirt. And Sam had _cut his hair_.

Jacob's face was suddenly obscuring my vision of Sam, and my friend's expression spoke volumes. He looked freaked out, and I recognized that something had gone wrong.

"Where's your room?" Jacob asked. He took my wrist in his hand and pulled me down the hall and towards my room. I looked over my shoulder and took one last good look at Sam Uley, who had come into my house and was now sitting down in the living room with my father.

Jacob pulled me into my room, then shut the door behind me.

"What _happened_ to him?" I asked Jacob. "He's _huge_!"

"What?" Jacob asked, distracted. "Oh, yeah. I'd gotten used to it. At the end of the summer, he was really sick for about a month. We think the sickness was caused by that crazy growth spurt he had, and his body couldn't handle the stress. But afterwards, I guess he started working out and he cut all his hair off-"  
"And why is he in my house, with my dad? What's he doing down there?" I asked.

Jacob shook his head, and his expression became troubled. "The drive over here was horrible, Bella. He just broke up with his girlfriend, Leah-"  
"What?!"

"Keep your voice down. That guy has ears like a fox," Jacob hissed.

"But they've been going out forever!" I gasped.

"I know, and he's completely torn up about it. I mean, I was stuck in a car with him for thirty minuets. I thought he was coming to my house for my sister's party, but he was only there because he was looking for some girl he wanted to talk to. She wasn't there, and I got to him before he left, so he brought me here-"

"But why is he staying?" I asked.

Jacob glanced at the door, as if he could see Sam and Charley sitting just on the other side of it. "He needs to talk to _someone_. He was a mess. And Charley's a grown up, so he knows about this kind of stuff."

"Poor Sam. Poor _Leah_," I sighed as I sat on my bed.

"I know," Jacob told me. "I really thought he was doing okay again, you know?"

"I told Charley he wouldn't be hanging around with us," I told Jacob.

Jacob waved his hand dismissively. "He's not. He's downstairs with Charley." Jacob turned towards me, suddenly very intent on the conversation. "Now tell me about last night."

"Well," I began nervously. "Angela got sick."

Jacob blinked at me. "So the sleep-over was canceled?"

"No. Dr. Cullen made a house call for Angela, and Angela was really upset about ruining the night. So she suggested Alice and I go to the Cullen's house, instead."

"You didn't," Jacob said dumbly. "Bella, you _didn't_."

"I was out of excuses," I told Jacob. "Charley has met Carlisle _and_ Alice now, so I couldn't say my dad would be upset about me going to a stranger's house, and I was already prepared for a sleep-over, so I couldn't make up some emergency for why I couldn't go-"

Jacob shook his head. "You didn't. You didn't."

"So while we were driving to the Cullen's house, I confronted them about being vampires."

"You _confronted_ them?" Jacob asked.

"And they owned up to it, and they said that they were the ones who had me during those three weeks after the car crash."

Jacob stood in front of me, visibly shaken. "How could you… And they… Those, those _monsters_-"

"They weren't monsters, Jacob," I immediately argued. "They've been nice to me. They've taken care of me, they-"

Jacob shook his head in denial. "They've confirmed it to you themselves. They _told_ you they were vampires, and you're still okay with them? You're okay that they _kill_ people and eat them?"

I shook my head. "I don't think it's like that, Jacob. Alice said they weren't like that. And Carlisle works in a _hospital_. I don't think they're bad-"

"How would you know?" Jacob suddenly raged. "You didn't even believe me when I told you they were vampires! You didn't believe me for months, and now you know that I was right, and I _warned_ you about them, and, and – They've been lying to you for months! They kidnapped you from you father and just kept you for three weeks, and you're _okay_ with all that?"

Jacob was angry. He was very angry, and I didn't like it.

"Jacob, _please_. _Please_ understand. The Cullens have been really nice to me. I mean, they've been truly _kind_. And they didn't _kidnap_ me. They found me in the woods while they were hunting, they patched me up, they took me back to Charley, and then they _left_. They said they wanted to introduce themselves the right way. If they wanted to hurt me, they could have done it by now. They've had many chances, but they-"

Jacob shook his head. "They're monsters."

He was really angry. He had _never_ been this angry at me before. Never.

I looked down at my hands, unsure of how to calm him down. Why didn't he understand? I thought once I spelled it out for him-

"Bella? Jacob?" Charley asked, knocking on the door. I opened my mouth to respond, but he opened the door before a sound could leave my mouth. "Why is the door closed?" Charley asked. My dad looked to where I was sitting on the bed, then he looked to where Jacob stood. Jacob hadn't uncurled his balled fists. "Are, are you two _fighting_?" Charley asked, clearly perplexed. Charley was confused for good reason, because Jacob and I _didn't fight_.

"Did you know she spent the night with Alice Cullen?" Jacob asked my father.

But my father liked Alice. He had met her several times. He liked Carlisle, too. Plus, Charley didn't know about vampires like the Quileutes did. He had no reason at all to dislike the Cullens.

"Yeah," Charlie answered. "Alice and Jasper dropped her off and stayed for some hot cocoa this morning."

Jacob was at a loss.

"You're fighting about the Cullens?" Charlie asked. Wrinkles appeared on his forehead as he struggled to comprehend the situation. "Have you met them, Jacob? They're really nice-"

"Yeah, Bella has been telling me how nice they are for the last ten minuets," Jacob told him.

Jacob had no right to speak to my father like that, and I turned a glare to him. He seemed to recognize his error, but he glared defiantly back at me.

"Jacob," Charley finally said. "Sam's ready to go back home. He's waiting out in his truck."

"What?" Jacob asked. His eyes flickered from me to my father. When he realized he had lost the fight, his shoulders slouched and his fists uncurled. "But…"

"Dad, can you please give us, like, two more minuets?" I snapped.

"Oh, oh yeah," he said awkwardly. And really, who walked in on an argument then just stood around when the participants _obviously_ needed a moment alone?

My father retreated from the room. He closed the door behind himself. I listened to his receding footsteps, and I only turned to look at Jacob when my father had reached the bottom of the stairs.

Jacob looked helpless.

"What is it?" I asked him

"What am I supposed to do?" he asked me. "How am I supposed to take care of you if you're willingly hanging out with a bunch of vampires who want to kill you?"

"First of all, they don't want to kill _anyone_," I said as I stood from my bed. "Second, you don't need to take care of me."

"I don't believe you," Jacob argued. "You obviously can't take care of yourself, if you're willing to endanger yourself like that. So _I_ have to take care of you. And I can't do that in La Push. I can't do that when you go to school with them and sleep at their house and-"

I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around him. He didn't hesitate to return the embrace.

"If you keep hanging around them, how can I ever stop worrying about you?" Jacob asked into my hair.

"You never have to worry about me with the Cullens," I told him. "Because they don't want to hurt me."

"You're a human, though. Even if they don't want to hurt you, they probably will. They aren't _meant_ to be friends with humans. They're- they're predators."

I sighed, because that was a good argument. I could tell that the Cullens didn't want to hurt humans, but Jacob's point was legit: Vampires were made to kill humans.

"How am I supposed to leave you alone with them now?" Jacob asked.

"Okay, okay," I finally conceded, and I pulled away from Jake. "I can't just stop hanging around with the Cullens, because I really like them. But you're right. It can't be safe for me to just go to their house willy-nilly and spend long periods of time with them. So I'll make you a deal."

"What kind of deal?" Jacob asked.

"I'll try to keep hanging out with them in public places. If I do go to their house, I'll try to invite Angela along or something, and I wont stay for very long-"

"You're still considering going to their house? That's like their den! Their den of murder!"

"Jacob, be quiet," I snapped. "You can be such a boy sometimes. They don't have a _den of murder_. Sheesh. Like I was saying, I wont stay for long-"

"You can't stay for more than an hour-"

"Now you're just being ridicules. I wont stay at their house for more than, like, I don't know, how about five hours?"

"No. No way," Jacob argued. "Five hours gives them plenty of time to drink all your blood, throw your body into the sea, then escape in that pretty Volvo of theirs. One hour-"

"Okay," I said. "How about this. I'll stay at their house for five hours at a time tops, as long as I text you once every hour."

"Anybody can send a text from your phone-"

"Then I'll call you," I conceded. "On the hour once every hour, on the rare occasion that I go to their house, okay? And in return, you can't worry about me hanging out with them otherwise. That's the deal. If I'm overly cautious with them, you can't freak out every time Alice and I go to the library or something."

Jacob's jaw was set, and his eyes were dark when I looked into his eyes. For a moment, I thought he was going to throw the entire deal out the window.

"Fine," he finally said. "But you _really_ have to try and avoid their house. And you _have_ to call me if you go over there. You have to let me know-"

"_Fine, okay_," I answered. I closed my eyes and rubbed my temple. Really, arguing with Jacob was useless. I always gave into his every little whim, even when his terms were as ridicules as "call me every hour."

"You mean it?" he asked. His voice was soft. When I looked at him again, I met his eyes and answered, "Yes. I mean it. Your terms are stupid and way overly cautious, but I'll do it, okay?"

"Okay," he said, a grin splitting across his face. "And now I wont be forced to transfer schools in the middle of the semester."

I rolled my eyes at his horrible joke. "Get out of here," I demanded, pushing him towards the door. "Sam's waiting for you."

"Oh, right," Jacob groaned. "I have to ride back to La Push with him."

I followed Jacob outside and stood on the front stoop as he climbed into Sam's truck. As I waved good-bye to Jacob and Sam, I wondered how I was supposed to explain to Alice why I would have to make a phone call once an hour whenever I went to her house.

**Annoying Note: This chapter was really fun to write. I'm not sure how in character it is, but I only wrote this yesterday, so enough time hasn't passed that I can see it as anything besides a masterful work of art. I'll try and revise it next week, when I can look at it a little more objectively. I just wanted to post it because I liked it so darn much and because I was excited. Damn my impatience. **

**Anyways, you know the drill: REVIEW!**

**p.s. Is anyone else amazed by how many commas I fit into the third sentence of this chapter? I can't stop looking at it. The sentence seems deformed. Yeah. One of those commas can definitely go.  
**


	11. Chapter 10

**A/N - Helloooo! So here's Chapter 10. It's a long one (for me, anyways).**

Alice waved to me, and I staggered to a stop.

What was I supposed to do?

By now, most of the school knew that I was the only person Alice and Emmett really spoke to, and no one was surprised when we spoke between classes. But Alice had just acknowledged me in a very public way that I hadn't been expecting.

Alice waved again, and this time the motion couldn't be mistaken as a gesture of greeting. Alice's wave was a direct and very loud command for me to walk across the lunchroom and sit at the table with her. And Emmett. And Edward. And Jasper. And even Rosalie.

My legs began to move, and my mind began to race. I saw the open seat at their table – weren't there usually only five chairs there? I had never seen that sixth chair before. There it was next to Alice and directly across from Edward. How did they expect me to eat my lunch when I could be staring into Edward's eyes for the entire lunch period?

I was approaching the table I usually sat at. And yes, there were my friends. Samantha, Conner, and Mike were already sitting. I had sat with these people at lunch every day since first grade. What would they think when I passed their table? Would they mind? Would they be upset?

"What's the matter?"

I jumped at Angela's voice behind me.

And everything was fixed.

"You're here! I thought you still had the flu!"

Angela shook her head. "It was a 24 hour bug. I got over it on Sunday morning."

"Good. Then you can come sit with me at the Cullen's table," I announced, and I began walking with more purpose towards the back of the room.  
"What?" Angela asked.

"I don't have the courage to sit with them by myself, and Alice has invited me over so grab a chair and sit with us," I demanded from the corner of my mouth.

"Why don't you have the courage?" Angela giggled. "Does it have to do with Emmett? Or is it _Edward_?"

"It's Jacob," I answered simply. Her laughter died.

"Ah," Angela supplied. "Okay. But only for today. I invited Ben to start sitting at our table-"

"Ben?" I asked, turning to look at her. "You asked-"

Angela's blush was the only answer I needed. "It was only an invitation to the table, Bella. Now hurry and sit down."

I did as she said and moved to take the seat next to Alice and across from Edward at the displaced Cullen table. I waited for Angela to pull up a seat at the end of the table, but she never appeared beside me. When I looked around, I saw that she had doubled back to our usual seats and was sitting down just as Ben arrived at the table.

Sneaky girl.

"So who's Jacob?"Rosalie asked from the other side of the table, a perfect eyebrow raised in question. When I looked at Emmett, he had a large, knowing smile on his face.

"He's my friend from La Push and- were you listening to my conversation with Angela?" I asked the group.

"We can't help it," Alice replied flippantly. "It's not like we can't hear everything within a mile radius."

"And more," Edward said sourly.

My eyes finally flickered to him. I had been avoiding his eye since I sat at the table. I briefly wondered why he was frowning at Rosalie.

"Is it weird?" I asked him, referring to his ability.

"Not anymore," he answered. "It only took a couple years to learn to drown most thoughts out. They're only a light buzz in the back of my mind for the most part."

Alice gently poked me in the side. "Don't change the topic," she demanded. "How is Jacob involved with you sitting with us at lunch?"

"I had a fight with him on Saturday," I said. I wasn't sure if I wanted to tell them about the deal I made with him. "He doesn't like the idea of me hanging out with you," I said carefully.

Alice nodded. "That's understandable."

"You don't mind that he… knows about you?" I asked. They already knew that he knew, but I had never talked to the Cullens about just how much I would be allowed to talk to him about them.

"Honestly, Bella, it's probably good that _someone_ knows," Edward said, his voice low. "So when you're alone with us…"

My chest filled with relief, then embarrassment as I said, "Oh, good. Because he's making me call him every time I hang out with any of you."

The vampires were quiet for a moment. Then, smiles broke out across their faces. Emmett's laugh was deep, and I felt it vibrate in my chest. Alice's laugh was light, and I imagined that Tinker Bell would laugh like her. Jasper's smile wasn't large, but the amusement was clear in his eyes.

But I couldn't take my eyes from Edward. His laugh was quiet, and I barley heard him over Emmett and Alice. But I _did_ hear him, and while Emmett's laugh may have rung in my chest, I felt Edward's laugh all the way to my toes. When I saw him smile, I couldn't help the strange twitch I felt at the corner of my mouth. I was so fixated by his bright, light eyes and the contours of his face that I didn't even blush when the laughed at me.

I heard something. It wasn't loud, it wasn't strange, and it didn't even fully register in my brain. But it was enough to have me drag my eyes away from the still laughing Edward. When I looked to the other end of the table, I saw that Rosalie wasn't amused at all.

* * *

"Dad?" I called into the living room as I set my backpack aside and took off my coat. "Angela and Alice are staying for dinner!"

"I'll order pizza, then," he answered from the couch. I was surprised to see he wasn't watching a game. Instead, he had paperwork in front of him.

"Do you think they'll deliver in this snow?"Angela asked as she followed me into the front hallway and began shedding her own coat and boots.

"Sure they will," Charlie said, unconcerned.

When Alice's coat had joined Angela's and mine in the front closet, I led the two girls upstairs to my room.

"Can I use your computer?"Angela asked when she saw my desk.

"Sure," I told her. I went to my windows and opened the curtains. It was snowing hard, but it was still early in the evening and the windows let in a goo amount of natural light.

"Is it supposed to snow over the holidays?" Angela asked as she turned in the chair to look out the window.

"Not for the first couple days," Alice answered. "But then there's a huge storm coming around on Christmas… We can go sledding when it clears," Alice said absently as she stared into the storm. When she turned away from the window and towards me, she gave me a wink, then went to lay on my bed.

I opened my mouth to ask her what her wink meant, but I was distracted by the loud tone which suddenly came from my computer. The tone was familiar to me. It meant there was mail in my inbox. Angela was unfamiliar with the e-mail service I used, though, and she clicked on the icon at the bottom of the computer screen.

"Two new e-mails from Jacob Black," Angela read aloud.

"Emmett says you talk about him all the time," Alice announced from her place on my bed.

Angela softly laughed. "You talk about Jacob to _Emmett_?"

"Jacob's my friend," I defended. "I kind of spend a lot of time with him, so there's not really anything else for me to talk about."

"Why do you spend so much time with him?" Alice asked, then widened her eys suggestively. "Do you _like_ him?"

Again, Angela laughed. To Alice, she said, "It's useless, Alice. Samantha and I have been trying to convince Bella that she has a crush on Jacob since we were in third grade."

"And I keep explaining that we are _friends_," I said pointedly, crossing my arms across my chest. "Charlie likes for me to spend my summers out on the reservation instead of cooped up in Forks. Billy looks after me, and Jacob is there."

"Since third grade? Really?" Alice asked Angela, completely ignoring me.

Angela nodded. "If you saw them together, you'd get it."

"When have you ever seen us together?" I asked Angela.

"At your 11th birthday party," Angela reminded me. "You made him sit next to you the entire day."

"I didn't make him sit next to me!" I argued.

"You haven't seen Jacob since Bella's 11th birthday?" Alice asked Angela.

Angela shrugged. "I sometimes see him on First Beach, but he never really comes up to Forks. We only hear about him all the time from Bella."

I sighed, recognizing that I had been completely excluded from the conversation. It felt very strange to have two people talking about me while pretending I wasn't in the room. I briefly wondered if they would notice if I ducked out of the room to use the bathroom.

But then, Alice turned to me. "Does Jacob like _you_, Bella?"

"No-" I began.

"He's crazy about her," Angela countered.

I was at a loss of words. For a moment, the only argument I could come up with was that Jacob didn't look at me like that. He probably saw me as a sister, only better, because he didn't get along with Rachel and Rebecca like he got along with me.

But then, I remembered the time almost four months ago when Jacob had pressed his lips against mine. Nothing like it had ever occurred again, and I always thought of it as a kiss between friends.

But Angela said he was _crazy_ about me.

When Alice turned curious eyes to me, I shook my head, urging such thoughts from my mind. "Really, we're friends. Jacob is my _best_ friend. We've known each other forever, and it's just really easy to get along with him."

I wasn't sure if I was trying to explain this logic to Alice or to myself.

I shook my head when a wide smile split across Angela's face. However, Alice's smile made me pause. Alice's smile was… strange.

* * *

I pulled my hood up and hurried around the side of the car. Charlie popped the trunk and rushed to help me pull some packages from the back of the cruiser.

"Wait, there's one missing!" I yelled over the wind. I thrust the packages I held into my father's arms. I rummaged around in the cruiser's trunk, pushing aside the first aid kit, some safety cones, a safety vest, and some extra ammo for Charlie's hand gun.

"Bella, could you be a little more careful-"

"Found it!" I declared, holding up the palm-sized box. I shut the trunk and hurried after Charlie into the small house. We didn't bother knocking. The snow had really picked up in the last ten minuets, and the clouds above us were becoming darker. Charlie and I wanted nothing more than to be out of the weather.

"Marry Christmas!" Charlie called when he stepped into the house.

"Dad, they're here!" Jacob called as he sprung up from the couch. "They actually came!"

"Yes, Jacob, I heard them come in," Billy laughed as he rolled his wheelchair into the room from the kitchen. When I glanced through the closing door, I recognized Rachel and Rebecca preparing Christmas Eve dinner. Charlie added the presents to the small pile in the corner of the room while I moved to hug Jacob and his father.

"We didn't think you'd be coming," Billy told Charlie as we all settled in the living room. At Billy's words, everyone glanced out the window to see the dark storm outside.

"It let up for a few minuets. It didn't get bad again until we pulled into your driveway," Charlie explained.

"What's that?" Jacob asked eagerly. He pointed to the tiny box in my hand. "Is it for me?"

"Jacob," Billy scolded.

"It's fine. It's not his real gift. I made it for my Design class," I told Billy.

"I made you something, too," Jacob told me. "And it's not your real gift, either, so you can open it now."

Jacob took my hand and eagerly pulled me towards his room. I followed Jacob and sat on his bed as he dug through one of his dresser drawers. He retrieved a brown wrapped package. It was much larger than the present I made him.

"Here," he told me. "My dad's finally gave me some proper tools, so I thought I'd practice by making something for you."

I settled on Jacob's bed, and he hurried to sit next to me. When we had exchanged gifts, I ripped through Jacob's poor rapping to see what he had made for me.

My eyes widened at a carved picture of First Beach. Jacob had made it from a large, flat piece of driftwood. He had spent the most time detailing the forest and cloudy sky, but I thought the entire thing was amazing. I could tell exactly which part of the beach he was trying to depict.

"It's not the best," Jacob said beside me. "I'm not near as good as my dad, and this is the first time I've done anything like scenery. I usually just carve animals and stuff like that."

"It's beautiful," I told Jacob. I ran my fingers along the ridges of the picture and traced the thick lines of the cliffs and sea. When I looked at Jacob, he was blushing furiously and looking down at his half unwrapped gift.

"Well?" I asked, nudging his leg with mine.

He gave me a sheepish grin before finishing with his own gift.

"Oh, cool!" He cried when he saw what I had made him. I had bent and sawed some mettle into a large fishing hook that would never actually work at catching a fish. I'd decorated it by connecting bird feathers, beads, and a few rocks to where the hook would be tied to a line. I was proud of it, and I had put a lot of time into shaping the mettle, but I had to admit: It was a bit girly for Jacob. It looked more like a decorative bird-pin than a fishing hook.

Jacob inspected the hook closely before smiling at me. "It's awesome."

I quaffed at his declaration. My present was crap compared to what he had given me. All the same, Jacob took down one of the pictures on his wall and hung the hook from the nail, allowing the feathers, beads, and rocks to dangle towards the floor.

He sat by me again and looked at the carved picture I still held in my hands. "You really like it?" he asked me.

"Of course I like it," I assured him. "You obviously put a lot of work into it."

"Are you going to stay the night this year?" Jacob asked hopefully.

"Yeah," I answered. "Don't we always?"

* * *

Jacob's mother died two years after mine. That year, when Christmas rolled around, the two single fathers decided it would be nice if they and their kids spent the holidays together. Thus, the tradition began. We would spend one Christmas at the Swan house, then two Christmases at the Black house, because there were four Blacks and only two Swans, and it was easier for me and Charlie to transfer our presents to Billy's house than it was for Billy and his three kids to come to our house.

There was also an issue of space at the Swan house. There were only two beds and one couch. I always had to share the bed with my father, Rachel and Rebecca took my bed, Billy took the couch, and Jake had to sleep on my bedroom floor. At the Black's house, Billy, Rebecca, Rachel and Jacob all got to sleep in their own beds, Charlie only had to pass out on the couch, and I slept with Jacob.

Or, well, I used to sleep with Jacob. When he turned ten and I turned twelve, Charlie said I had to share a bed with either Rebecca or Rachel. Of course, this was horrible, and Jacob and I had thrown a fit. We always stayed up together on Christmas Eve and waited for Santa Claus. The girls wouldn't do that with me, and Jacob shouldn't have to do it by himself.

Officially speaking for the last three years, I had climbed into bed with one of the girls at about ten at night. Unofficially, I snuck into Jacob's room after about thirty minuets. We raged about the injustice of our parents for all of ten minuets before settling comfortably and continuing with our Christmas tradition.

On this Christmas, though, I understood what Charlie and Billy were thinking when they split us up. They were thinking that I was girl, and Jacob was a boy, and Jacob was a boy who people thought was _crazy _ about me.

I stayed in Rachel's bed for an entire hour that night. I kept replaying the conversation with Alice and Angela from the week before. I kept seeing Alice's weird smile. Then, I kept thinking about kissing Jacob in the cliffs. The indecision was horrible. For a moment, I thought I really was growing too old to sleep with Jacob.

Then, I remembered that I had been too old to sleep with Jacob for three years. I still spent the night at Jake's house all the time in the summers, and I always stayed on the couch. But Christmas was _different_. Christmas was _Christmas_, and for the past two years, Jacob and I had a tradition which we had continued even when I slept on the couch the rest of the year.

Finally, I crept out of bed, into the hallway, and into Jacob's room. He was awake and sitting up, staring out his window into the dark night.

"There you are," he whispered when I sat next to him.

"Who's Santa Claus this year?" I asked. The window wasn't well insulated, and I could feel a draft filling the room. I took Jacob's quilt and wrapped it around my shoulders.

"Harry Clearwater," he answered. "I'm sure of it. The girls have been running an awful lot of 'errands' around his place this month, you know?"

I grinned, because I did know. Each Christmas, the families of the res bought their Christmas presents, wrapped them, and then dropped them off with the designated Santa Claus. Then, early Christmas morning, they took the presents to the houses. There were only a few presents under the tree when we went to sleep, but when we woke up the next morning, the presents would be piled high.

"What did you ask for this year?" I asked Jacob.

"More carving tools. We've been cooped up in the house because of all the snow this year, and it's something fun when there's nothing else to do, you know? I'm hoping that since I made that picture for you, dad saw I was serious about it. He has a whole collection of carving tools that his father used to use. I've seen them, Bella. They look real old. I bet my grandfather made some of them himself, or he even got them from _his_ father. If Billy knows I'm serious about carving, maybe he'll give me just one of the tools, at least, you know?"

"You think it will be a good Christmas?" I asked.

Jacob knew I was referring to his family's money situation and answered, "Yeah. Rachel put aside some of her money from work, and I made a bit of money from helping people with their cars, so even _I_ was able to help buy some stuff this year."

"I'm glad," I sighed. When I became more cold from the window's draft, I laid down on the bed and properly covered myself with Jacob's bed sheets. Jacob watched me from where he sat at his window.

There was vague light shining through his window from outside, probably from the garage's light, and it was just enough to highlight the contours of Jacob's face. I could see his long, strait nose, the shadow of his jaw, and the slight pout of his bottom lip. I couldn't see his eyes, though. The shadows over his eyes were deep and black, and without the distraction of his beautiful black eyes and his bright gaze, I was able to concentrate on the features of his face, something I realized I was never able to do when he was looking into my eyes.

"What is it?" I asked when he didn't stop staring.

"I'm just glad you're here. I thought you were going to stay in my sisters room this year."

"No way," I told him. "Those two hardly even talk before bed, and they fall asleep so _quickly_."

Jacob grinned, the shadow of his lips stretching across his face. "And Rachel talks in her sleep," he told me. "You'd have to listen to her mumble all night."

"Right," I said. "They could never help me catch Santa Claus in the act. I bet those two could sleep through an earthquake."

"I think our house is one of the first houses he'll come to this year," Jacob told me quietly as he glanced out the window.

"What if Santa Claus is _Sue_?" I asked, quietly laughing. Jacob's smile widened.

* * *

I heard something, and my eyes slowly drew open.

I recognized Charlie's voice and the squeak of the screen door.

I lay on my side facing Jacob's bare back, so when I heard a second voice reply to Charlie's I set my hand against Jacob's side and began shaking him.

"Jacob," I whispered urgently. "Jacob, Santa Claus is here." The words felt ridiculous coming out of my mouth.

"Hush," Jacob commanded, and I realized he was already awake and alert. "I'm trying to listen."

Jacob and I fell into silence, not daring to so much as move for fear of missing something.

"-never a problem before," I heard Charlie say quietly. "The kids stay up late then sleep in, so I don't actually loose any sleep at all."

"Well thanks for staying with Billy, anyways," came the reply. "He could especially use the extra help around Christmas."

"That's Harry alright," Jacob proudly declared.

After distinguishing a few more sounds, I answered, "Charlie's putting on his cold weather gear! He's going to help bring the stuff in."

Jacob and I lay still and quiet while Harry and my dad carried in the presents. The process took all of ten minuets, then Harry and Charlie said good-bye, I heard Charlie's snow boots hit the floor, and I heard Charlie's body hit the couch.

"We caught Santa Claus!" I whispered, still mindful that Charlie probably wasn't asleep yet.

"It's about time, too," Jacob whispered back, craning his head around to look at me. "We've only been trying to stay awake for him since we were five."

I opened my mouth to correct him; I was seven, and I was older than him.

But at that moment, I realized my hand was still resting against Jacob's bare side. I had kept it there after attempting to wake him up. My fear of moving and creating sound had kept me still.

Jacob's skin was warm, and soft.

I took my hand away from his side. When I did so, he turned so he was laying on his side facing me instead of facing away from me. It occurred to me that he probably would have moved to this position sooner if I hadn't kept my hand on his side. So then he had been aware of where my hand was placed, even though I wasn't.

I was glad the room was so dark, or else Jacob would see the blush creeping up my cheeks. As it was, I wondered if the chilly air in the room allowed him to feel the heat radiating from my face all the same.

"What time is it?" I asked, trying to dissipate my own awkwardness.

"It's 12:30. I was right. I think this is the first house he came to.

"Have you been awake this entire time?" I asked.

"Yeah. You fell asleep when your head hit the pillow," he quietly joked.

"I'm sorry I didn't stay up with you Jacob," I sighed. "I left you to wait alone-"

"It didn't feel like I was alone," he argued.

"What? Why not?"

I couldn't see Jacob's face very well, but I could vaguely see the smug upward turn of his lips. "You talk in your sleep," he told me. "And you do more than mumble nonsense like Rachel."

When Jacob quietly chuckled, I knew for a fact that it was because he could feel my blush radiating off of my cheeks.

"What did I say?" I asked.

"Can't say," Jacob told me. "You had a very private conversation with me, and I don't think it's polite to gossip-"

"What did I-"

Jacob's hand shot up lightning fast. When he covered my mouth, I realized I had been speaking in a normal tone.

"Sorry," I whispered against Jacob's hand.

"You didn't say anything, really," Jacob told me as he pulled his hand back under the covers. "You were talking about going to the beach."

"Oh. Was that all?" I asked.

"Yeah," Jacob quietly sighed.

**Annoying Note- Well it's December, and this is the Christmas chapter, so Marry Christmas! However, I'll have you know that the first draft of this chapter was written in, like, May or something like that, so the timing is coincidental, and Christmas will kind of be an ongoing thing in this story... because Christmas is just too awesome, and it should be a year-round thing. **

**Extra Brownie points to whoever spotted the supper long sentence with a ridiculous amount of commas. Seriously, I'm thinking of starting up a Where's Waldo for each chapter. I'll sneak in a ridiculous sentence, and you find it.  
**

**Soooo...Review.  
**


	12. Chapter 11

**A/N: Whew! This is a long one, folks. I've only looked over it for grammar junk twice, and after all the energy I put into writing today, I don't feel like staring at it anymore. I'll edit it some other time. Anyways, enjoy!**

"Marry Christmas, Bella!" Alice chirped as I opened the door for her.

Emmet followed Alice into the house, and he carried two large presents for me.

"You didn't have to," I automatically began when I saw the packages. The speech I was about give was familiar and well practiced because I recited it any time someone gave me a gift.

"Hello, Chief Swan," Alice greeted before I could properly begin my speech.

"Hello, Alice," my dad answered, glancing at the girl for a second. "It's nice to see you again."

"I didn't know anyone was playing," Emmett said when he saw the game Charlie was watching."

"Oh, no. This is my recording of the 1996 playoffs."

"1996," Emmett murmured. Then, a big grin spread across his face. "Fantastic." Charlie looked startled when Emmett thrust the presents into my arms and plopped next to him on the couch. However, as Emmett's expression turned into what I knew as the unblinking game face, a pleased grin settled against Charlie's features and he also went back to watching the game.

"Sorry about him," Alice told me. She took my arm and began leading me upstairs to my room.

"Alice, what are you doing here?" I asked as she led me to my room and set me down on my bed.

Alice waved to the presents I still held in my hands. "We came to wish you a Merry Christmas, of course."

"Alice, really," I sighed. "You didn't need to get these for me."

"Of course I did," she said. "What other excuse could I have for coming to see you this beautiful sunny non-stormy morning?"

I frowned at Alice's list of adjectives. Glancing outside my window, I noticed that it did appear that the last clouds from the storm were thinning.

"So?" she asked. "Open them!"

"Isn't this from Emmett, too?" I asked. It seemed rude to open the presents without him.

"No," Alice answered sweetly. "He was only carrying them for me. So open them!"

I only began to unwrap the packages after delivering a very put-upon sigh and making it very clear that unwrapping presents was a chore for me.

The first package I opened revealed a pair of thick black pants which even _I_ saw as unfashionable. I wondered if Alice was also able to See the future of fashion, and she was only trying to set me up as a trend setter. As I studied the thick, formless pants, though, I decided I didn't want to encourage this sort of fashion.

I looked to Alice, prepared to ask her exactly what was going on, but before I could speak, she said, "Open the other one."

I did as Alice said and I ripped into the second package. When I pulled out the coat, I recognized it as something resembling the ski coats I sometimes saw at Newton's Outfitters. Except, this seemed like a ski coat on steroids. It was five times nicer than anything I had ever seen at Newton's.

"Are you… planning to take me skiing?" I asked. The very thought of trying to remain upright while speeding down a mountainside at forty or fifty miles an hour terrified me. My treacherous imagination then added trees into the equation, and I actually shuddered.

I can't describe the relief I felt when Alice said, "No."

"Then what?" I asked.

"We're taking you sledding," Alice announced.

* * *

"Calling Jacob?" Alice asked, teasing.

I slammed the phone into its receiver, then blushed at being caught. Embry had been hanging out with Jacob, so his warnings weren't nearly as dire or detailed as he'd wanted them to be, I was sure. Still, he'd gotten his point across: vampires drank human blood, and I was a human who would be alone with them.

"You didn't talk for very long," Alice observed.

"You were listening?" I asked, blushing. I thought I would have a private moment while Alice and Emmett went to their car to get the rest of the cold weather gear they'd bought me, so I'd called Jacob.

"Sorry, Bella, but we could hear you as if you were standing right next to us," Alice told me, her smile still teasing.

A moment latter, Emmett came into the kitchen carrying the rest of the packages. I was relieved to see that they hadn't been wrapped.

Charlie, who had watched Emmett carry the packages into the house, followed him into the kitchen.

"Are you taking my daughter sledding, or are you taking her to live in Antarctica?" Charlie joked as he picked up a pair of fleece-lined gloves and studied them. "They don't even give rescue teams this quality of equipment," Charlie said absently.

"The sun might be coming out, but it will still be cold outside," Alice gently told Charlie as she took the gloves from his hand. She deftly ripped them from their packaging and stuffed them into the pockets of my ski coat. "And we plan to stay out for quite a while, so we want Bella to stay warm."

"You'll stay safe, wont you?" Charlie asked, and I heard some of his dad voice leaking into the words.

"Of course she will," Alice answered for me. "We were raised by Carlisle. We're nothing if not cautious."

Emmett nodded. "We go camping a lot, so we have all the emergency supplies Bella could ever need."

"Well keep an eye on her all the same," my father demanded. "She can hardly stand on her own."

"Dad, please," I sighed.

"We'll take care of her," Alice promised.

In the car, I sat in the back seat and tried not to look out the window as Emmett sped through the streets.

"Will it just be the three of us?" I asked.

"Edward and Esme are coming, too," Alice told me. "They're at the house, finishing the sled."

"Finishing?" I asked. "You mean… they made a sled?"

"They made two," Emmett corrected. "We have to make our own. Store bought sleds don't really hold up with us, and even the ones we make can only be used for a day or two."

I frowned, wondering what they could possibly do to destroy a sled in one day. I knew that as vampires, they were strong, but sleds were for sitting on while sliding down hills…

"How was your Christmas?" Alice asked, interrupting my thoughts. "Did you get any good presents?"

"My dad got me a fishing pole, _again_," I said, rolling my eyes. He had given me three, now. "But he also gave me some really good DVDs, some really nice sheets for my bed, and he bought me a new desk for my room. Jacob's going to help me set it up."

Alice turned in her seat to look at me. "Angela told me that you and Charley stay with Jacob in La Push for Christmas," she said. The corners of her lips turned up, and her eyebrows rose suggestively. "How was your Christmas _with Jacob_?"

I thought of Charismas morning, when I was awake before Jacob. I lay face down on the bed for an hour while Jacob continued to sleep on. He had thrown one of his arms over my back, and I learned that he very gently mumbled in his sleep, like his sister.

"It was good," I told Alice, blushing.

"Did _he_ get any good presents?" Alice asked. Again, she wiggled her eyebrows, but her question made me suddenly excited, so I didn't have the energy to be embarrassed at the implication of her tone.

"Jacob got the _best_ present!" I told Alice. "Billy gave Jacob a car."

"A car?" Emmett asked, his eyes on the road. "Does he even have a learner's permit yet?"

"It's not a car to drive," I corrected. "Billy gave Jacob his old truck so Jacob can fix it up. He even said Jacob could have all of the tools in the garage!"

After presents and breakfast, Jacob and I had bundled up and gone back to the garage to look at the old truck. I thought the thing looked like a piece of junk, but Jacob had been so excited, he could keep from beginning to pull apart the engine. At lunch, Billy scolded me for not stopping Jacob before he got oil all over his winter coat. If Billy had been there, though, he would have understood that Jacob couldn't be stopped.

* * *

The Cullen's house was warm.

"We installed a furnace," Edward told me with a handsome grin. "See?" He pressed the back of his hand to my cheek. Sure enough, his soft, smooth skin was almost room temperature.

"Alice said you built some sleds," I told him.

"Do you want to see them?" Edward asked.

When I nodded, he motioned for me to follow him through the house and out the back door. In the kitchen, I waved to Esme as she stood over the stove. As Edward opened the door, I wanted to remind him that he wasn't wearing shoes or a coat, but then I remembered that he was a vampire and therefore unaffected by cold. As I followed behind him, I watched the impressions his bare feet left in the snow.

"Well? What do you think?"

My attention was drawn from Edward's bare feet in the snow, and I blinked.

"That's not a sleigh. That's a carriage!" I gapped.

"Carriages have wheels," Edward said. "Sleighs ride on blades." He pointed to the two dangerous looking blades the seat sat on top of.

"Do… do _you_ pull the sleigh?" I asked.

"We take turns," Edward said casually. "You'll share this sleigh with Alice and Esme. Emmet and I take that one."

Edward pointed to the second sleigh. It was narrower, longer, and the front of the sleigh dipped and curved to a point.

"Why do you and Emmett take that one?" I asked.

Edward gave me a grin. "We like to go _fast_."

I blinked, and the sleigh suddenly came into focus, as if I was seeing if it a new light or from a different angle. It was shaped somewhat like a bobsled, and now I could see that the sleigh was made for speed. It occurred to me that vampires wouldn't be content with simply sliding down a hill. Their bodies were indestructible. They didn't have limitations like I did.

"Why doesn't Jasper, Rosalie or Carlisle come?" I asked.

"If Rosalie wants to go, she has to make her own sled," Edward told me. "She likes speed more than Emmet and I combined, and she just tares through anything I make her. Jasper hasn't eaten in a while, so he's… keeping distant from you for today, and Carlisle decided to keep him company."

"Oh, I-"

"Bella!" Esme called quietly from the back porch. When I looked at her, I immediately noticed that she wasn't wearing shoes, either. "Come drink some hot cocoa and stay warm for a bit. We want to spend as much time outside with you as possible!"

I saw Esme's warm smile, and I couldn't help but smile back. Briefly, I wondered if my mother would have smiled at me like that, if she had lived.

* * *

"I'll pull first!" Esme offered as she placed old, faded cushions on the seat of the sleigh for me. Alice helped me into the sleigh, then placed a blanket over my legs and put a thermos of hot cocoa in my hand. When she climbed into the sleigh next to me, she threw the blanket over her own lap, and I was glad. I could tell that the vampires had done this many times before, but never with a human. Because I knew they were vampires, they didn't have to pretend they needed warm clothes, and I felt strange being the only person wearing layers.

I remembered asking Alice why she and the other Cullens even bought food. I remembered telling her that it was just as strange watching them buy the food and not eat it than if they didn't buy food at all. Now, I understood. Esme and Edward were still without shoes, and Alice was wearing a skirt. They just didn't look right trouncing around in the snow like that. Seeing Alice share the blanket with me made me feel just a little less awkward.  
I watched as Emmett settled in the speed sleigh as Edward prepared to take the first turn pulling. Emmett looked strange sitting in the small, elegant sleigh. He looked like he should be pulling _both_ of the sleighs, not sitting in one.

When Emmett caught my eye, he grinned at me. "I always make Edward pull first. He runs the fastest, so it's a bit of a trill, even for me."

I laughed, and the sleigh jerked forward as Esme began to pull Alice and I. The vampire was small, but she pulled the sleigh effortlessly. Soon, she was jogging, and cold air was pulling at my hair and making it a little wild.

I heard the wood of the other sleigh give an ominous crack as Edward began to move, and then I heard Emmett give a loud whoop. The sleigh crashed past us, then they were gone. Seeing them pass us was strange, because I didn't actually see them. It had been more of a brief flicker in the corner of my eye. It reminded me of when I sometimes sensed movement beyond my line of sight, but when I turned my head, the movement had already stopped.

"Where did they go?" I gasped.

"They only ran ahead, to the hills," Alice told me. "We'll meet up with them in five miles.

"Can you all move that fast?" I asked, wondering if the speed was something only Edward had, like his ability to read people's thoughts.

"Well, not _that_ fast," Alice told me. "Edward is the fastest vampire I've ever met. But yeah, we can."

"Why don't you run like that, Esme?" I asked.

She had been running for a few minuets, but she wasn't even out of breath as she told me, "Carlisle said you don't like to move that fast, which is understandable. That kind of speed wasn't made for humans."

"Carlisle? How would he know?" I asked.

"He told us after he took you home," she told me. "When we met you before."

Right. I had almost completely forgotten about their previous visit to Forks. I remembered Carlisle saying that Jasper "caught my scent."

"What happened?" I found myself asking. "When Jasper found me?"

Esme and Alice were quiet for a moment. Finally, Alice said, "He kind of freaked out. He's not … resistant to the smell of human blood, and he doesn't do so well when he gets a whiff of it. Luckily, you and your mother were far enough away that he only caught the scent from a passing breeze. The smell was gone a moment latter, he came back to his senses, and he ran for Carlisle. Carlisle is essentially immune to human blood, so we always go to him, first. Within minuets, Carlisle found the wreck. He recognized that some of the blood inside the car wasn't from your mother, so he went searching for you…"

"And?" I pressed.

"You were very upset, Bella," Esme answered for Alice.

The picture of my mother upside down with her neck bent at an angle came into my mind unbidden. I repressed a shudder, then opened the thermos and drank a few sips of hot cocoa to settle my stomach.

"You were also very hurt, and scared," Esme told me. "We knew only that one of your parents was dead, we didn't know who your father was or if he was even around, and we couldn't even calm you down enough so you could tell us your name. By the time we had figured everything out, you were safe and comfortable in our home. Rosalie had a hold of you, and Edward… We didn't know how to give you back to your father. For a while, we didn't know if we even wanted to take you home. You stopped asking for your parents after two days, and after a week you seemed to forget who they were altogether. When we asked you about Charlie, you thought we were talking about Carlisle. When we asked about Renee, you thought we were talking about Rosalie. That's when we knew it was time for you to go home. Then you became sick and delirious, and we had an opening to take you home. But we were attached to you by then, so we promised we would come back."

Alice grinned at me. "I've never watched a human grow before. We've had a lot of fun coming around and checking up on you."

"You checked up on me?" I asked.

"Sure," Alice told me, completely unabashed. "Once a year, at least. Even when we split up, we always came together to check up on you. It was like a family tradition. Most families celebrate birthdays or Thanksgiving, but we always got together and looked up your school pictures."

When the story was over, I looked ahead of the sleigh. Esme had picked up a bit of speed, and I watched a beautiful white world go by.

The scenery couldn't distract my interest, though. Questions were whirling through my head. I wanted to ask about Rosalie, I wanted to ask about Edward; I knew there was more to the story than what they were telling me. And why didn't they keep me? I had picked up on the fact that there were no children in the family even though there were three couples. I knew that if they had taken me, I would have loved growing up with them-

At this thought, memories of my summers with Jacob and the Quileutes began to rush through my mind, but I shoved them away. I loved my family in La Push, but I wondered what kind of amazing adventures I would have had growing up with vampires as family.

And they would have been my family. I wondered how I had forgotten my mother and father so quickly. I had obviously loved the Cullens, and they had obviously loved me.

Of all the questions running through my mind, I chose only one.

"What do you mean when you say Carlisle is immune to human blood? I–I mean… I know you don't _kill_ humans, but…"

The sled slowly came to a halt.

When I turned to Alice, I saw her unfocused eyes and realized I had seen this look on her face before, at the restaurant with Angela and Jasper, and in my room when she was talking about the weather-

"Edward is going to be _so_ angry," Alice told us.

"You think we drink human blood, Bella?" Esme asked as she turned towards me. The forest was still around us, and I realized I had become accustomed to the motion of the sleigh.

"Well," I answered nervously, "You're _vampires_."

Saying the word made me remember Jacob, and I suddenly wanted to call him to tell him I was okay.

"We drink animal blood," Esme gently explained. "It's the only reason we're ever able to settle and live in one place."

Joy began to well in my chest, behind my heart. Something inside of me clicked, and I laughed, happy. I hadn't realized that I had truly been afraid of them. I had trusted them, but only in the way a lion tamer trusted his lion. I honestly _had_ expected something to happen. But I knew that they cared for me, so they would let anything truly bad happen to me. And sure, there was still a possibility of danger, but there was suddenly much less danger.

I couldn't wait to tell Jacob. Now, I didn't want to call him so I could tell him I was fine. I wanted to call him so I could tell him that I was _safe_.

Beside me, Alice repeated the words, "Edward will be _so_ angry."

* * *

Alice and Esme squished against either of my sides. Alice held my hand.

"Are you sure?" Alice asked me.

Slowly, I nodded. I had never been on a roller coaster before, and I wonder if this is how people felt when they were approaching a steep drop for the first time.

"Okay," Emmett said behind us. "Bella, keep a hold of Alice."

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. Then, we were falling. I couldn't help a short scream from escaping my lips, but Alice's hold on my hand was strong and comforting, and my panic was short-lived. Then, adrenalin was pumping through my veins and I was laughing as Emmett caught up with the sleigh, jumped against its back, and began to push it as if it were a scooter or a skateboard. We slid over hills and down slopes. Alice and Esme leaned with their weight so we avoided crashing into trees or brush. Then, we slid onto a tiny lake. It was frozen solid, but the force of Emmett's kicks broke the ice. The sound of cracking and breaking filled my hears as Emmett picked up speed, and we were suddenly off the lake and on solid ground again, and Emmett was easily pushing us up yet another hill.

Alice and Esme laughed on either side of me, and at first I didn't know why. Emmett was going slow for me. At least, it was slower than what he was capable of. Surely they had experienced much more power, something much more thrilling than this.

Then, I realized they were laughing because I was laughing. They were laughing because I was happy.

* * *

I collapsed back onto the ground, next to my snow angle I had just made. The snow was thick and soft. It was perfect. I couldn't remember ever having so much fun in snow before. I usually hated the wet and the cold, but the ski suit kept me dry and warm, and the only cold spot on my body was my nose, which stuck out past the warm scarf Alice insisted stay wrapped around my face.

On the other side of the clearing, Emmett, Edward, and Alice were having a very painful looking snowball fight. Esme sat in the sleigh, and when she saw me glance at her, she motioned me over to have some more hot cocoa. As I stood next to the sleigh and drank, I watched as Alice forwent snow and began throwing rocks at the two other vampires. Emmett feigned hurt, but Edward continued to laugh, even when I could actually _hear_ the stones bouncing against his chest. When Emmett threatened Alice with a small boulder, she ran to the other side of the clearing, towards me, and her beautiful laugh seem to echo over all the hills and the forest.

Then, the clouds broke. The first ray of sunlight touched a near-by hill. The light reflected off the snow, and I gasped at the beauty of it. I followed the rays of light as the clouds continued to open and bathe the Olympic Mountains with sunshine. When it came near the clearing, the vampires caught my eye. They all stood perfectly motionless. I had never seen a being so still in my life, and I was afraid. I remembered that vampires weren't supposed to like sunlight, and I wanted to call out to them in warning, but I couldn't. The all stood towards the sun, with their faces turned towards the sky.

The light hit Edward, first. His skin sparkled like the snow, and I thought that I would never see anything so beautiful again.

Then, the light hit Emmett, then Alice, then Esme.

Esme sighed at the warmth of the sun, and I reached out to touch her hand. When my hand cast a shadow over her skin, the spark disappeared, and I whipped my hand away from her, unwilling to let that beauty disappear.

Thirty minuets latter, the clouds in the sky had completely vanished, and I was able to continue having fun. After all, with the sun-shine and cloudless sky, I didn't have to worry about looking away and letting their beauty disappear.

* * *

Alice carried me to the top of a hill, then to the top of a tree so her cell-phone had a good enough signal that I could call Jacob. This was the fifth time she had done this for me, and while I spoke to him, I hung limply in Alice's arms at the top of the tree. I informed Jacob that the day had been fun but I was getting cold, and we had traveled far, far from the house, so we had to get going.

When we reached the sleighs again, Esme and Alice decided to take a turn with the speed sleigh, so I settled next to Edward in what I liked to refer to as the "passenger sleigh" while Emmett began to run us back to the house. It was becoming dark outside, and I was hungry, so it wasn't a leisurely scenic ride like that morning. Emmett moved just as fast as when he was pushing the sleigh through the hills. Esme climbed into the speed sleigh, and then she and Alice were darting past us, like a bullet.

Beside me, Edward was beautiful in the late sun. The golden glow of the light made his skin shine more beautifully than it had all day, and it was like watching the sunset.

"Bella, why would you agree to spend time with us if you thought we drank human blood?"

I blinked, and his profile in the evening sun looked suddenly different. Edward was still beautiful, but I now noticed that his jaw was set, his shoulders were abnormally strait, and he was glaring at the trees ahead of us as if they had done him some great personal harm.

"One of the first things Alice told me was that you don't hurt humans," I reminded him. "And Carlisle's a doctor. Jacob and I thought you just got blood from the hospital."

"You thought we were stealing blood given by humans to help other humans?" Edward sounded outraged by the very idea. "Carlisle's very purpose it to help humans, and purposely taking those donations could prevent us from helping dozens of people."

"Yeah, but how many people would it prevent you from _killing_," I reminded.

"It was a logical conclusion," Emmett spoke up.

"Don't encourage her!" Edward snapped at him. When he turned to me, he said, "You have to know that we're dangerous, after how much Jacob has told you-"

"Jacob hasn't-"

"You have to be aware of yourself around us! You have to be aware of how dangerous this is for you!"

"Why do you think I call Jacob every hour?" I argued.

"An hour is more than long enough for you to die, Bella," Edward answered.

I wondered if it would be long enough for him to escape in his pretty Volvo, too.

"Then what?" I asked. "Should I call Jacob every _thirty_ minuets?"

Emmett laughed, and the trees around us shook with the sound.

"You need to make healthy decisions!" Edward answered. He sounded like my father in a way Charlie had never sounded, and it was weird.

Still, I couldn't help but enjoy his worry, just a little. Edward didn't worry about any of the other girls at school like this. He certainly didn't worry about the three beautiful women he lived with like this.

It reminded me of the other questions I had had after Esme told me about my stay with the Cullens that morning.

"Edward, what did you think about me when I was little?"

In front of us, Emmett laughed. Beside me, Edward stilled.

"What?" he asked.

"Esme mentioned that you weren't sure if you would take me home. She said something about Rosalie, and you. Why?"

Like earlier in the day, both vampires were silent for a moment.

"Did you want to make me into a vampire?" I asked.

"No!" Edward immediately said. "No, no, no!"

"Why not?" I asked. "I mean… Esme made it sound like I almost stayed with you, so…"

"We wouldn't have turned you," Emmett told me. "You would have been perpetually five-years-old. A lot happens to us when we're changed, but developmentally, our brains stop with our bodies. You would have been just… five forever."

"Oh," I said stupidly.

"It wasn't about you being a vampire," Edward told me. "It was… I'm… I'm drawn to you, because of the way your blood smells for me. Vampires call it blood that sings."

"You can smell my blood?" I asked.

Edward reached across our laps and slipped his hand into the space between the sleeve of my jacket and my gloves. He touched his icy fingers to my wrists.

"I can smell you from a mile away," he told me, and my heart jumped. He grinned, and it reminded me of the knowing, teasing smile that Alice sometimes gave me.

"That's why you liked me, then?" I asked. "Because my blood smells nice to you?"

"And because I can't hear your mind," he reminded me. "I'd forgotten what it was like to have to get to know someone."

I realized that Edward's hand was still pressed against my wrist, and I let him keep it there.

**Annoying Note: Ta-da! I like to call this Bella's Big Day, because so much frickin junk happened. **

**I hope you like the sleigh idea. There was a parade down my street the other day, and I got the idea while watching a tiny pony pull a tiny carriage with two heavy women inside of it. The pony was the supper-human vampire in that story. Gha, sorry, I just felt so sorry for that little guy, especially when it was surrounded by huge carriages being pulled by four great big black horses with only one person in the carriage. **

**Okay, I'm going to stop being off track and talking about supper- pony's. I don't even like horses. Anyways! I hope you like this chapter. I wrote it while I was in several different moods, and my writing style changes with my moods, so I'm sorry if the style at the beginning is different than the end. And again, I don't care about grammar junk right now. **

**Next chapter: Back to Jacob!!! I hope you Edward fans enjoyed this chapter, because I have no idea how to write Edward (because I think he's kind of a whiny bastard, but whatever. He needs to be in this story, because love is only good when it's messy, and there's no one who could make a relationship more messy than Edward. But hey, at least the guy has one redeeming quality: he's cute!).  
**

**Review!**


	13. Chapter 12

**Annoying Note: Another chapter!**

"That's _disgusting_!" Jacob declared. "He told you that your blood smells good, and then you actually stayed at their house for dinner?"

He held his hand out to me, and I handed him the wrench.

"It's a little weird, sure, but…"

Jacob straitened from his place under the truck's hood so he could stare at me. "You _like_ it," he accused. "You smell like a fried salmon dinner to him and you _like_ it."

"No!" I argued, a hot blush rising to my cheeks. "I like it because it makes me feel connected to him! I'm not pretty like Angela or Jessica or Alice, so it's nice that there's _something_ that makes him feel connected to me!"

I wished I had some sort of vampire supper power which would allow me to just suck the words back in before they floated through space and reached Jacob's ears. I should have let him think that I liked smelling like a fried salmon dinner. Or, better yet, I should have taken Angela up on her offer to drive out to Port Angeles this morning. Then, I wouldn't be having this conversation with Jacob at all. But no, I just _had_ to get in one last day with him before school started again.

"God, Bella, why do you want him to like you?" Jacob asked. "Why do you want _any of them_ to like you? You don't need to form _connections_ with them!"

I let out a long breath. "I'm sorry, Jacob. I know you don't want me to like them, but… I can't help it. I'm drawn to them, and they obviously care a lot about me."

"I care about you, too!" Jacob snapped, and the wrench fell from his hands and clattered loudly against the cement floor of his garage. "I care a lot about you!"

I blinked at him, startled. "I know that," I said plainly. "I mean, we're best friends, Jake."

"Would you care about me more if I had some supper freaky powers? Would you care more about La Push if Billy and I became vampires?"

"Of course not," I answered. "I love La Push, Jacob. I love you and Billy. Nothing would change that. Why can't someone else like me, too?"

"No one else can like you because you belong with us! You belong in La Push!" Jacob cried. When I looked into his black eyes, I saw they were round and shiny.

"Jacob, what's wrong?" I asked, standing from the low stool Jacob had put in the garage for me to sit on.

Jacob shook his head. He seemed to buck up within moments. His eyes were no longer shiny, and I saw the way his jaw suddenly seemed to sharpen.

Sill, I could tell he was upset.

"What happened?" I asked.

"I… Dad and Rachel got into a big fight this morning," he said. "About college. She only mentioned that she might not go, and my dad got really angry. He asked her if she was just going to sit around the res her whole life, and she said… She said she wasn't going to stay on the reservation after high school. She said she _never_ liked the reservation, and that she couldn't wait to get away… And _she_ was the one fighting with dad, but then he had to come and talk to me about obligations to the tribe, and he was talking about the continuing legacy and preserving the Quileute way of life."

"And?" I pressed.

"Leaving the reservation has never crossed my mind, Bells. I _love_ this place."

"So then what's the problem?"

"I thought everyone felt that way. I mean, I know a lot of really happy people who live around here. I didn't know Rachel felt that way, and I don't understand why she's in such a hurry to get out of here."

"That's how my mother felt," I told him quietly, and Jacob's eyes met mine. "You and I both know how beautiful La Push is, but some people just aren't made for it. And I say it's worse for them, because there has to be something wrong with them not to appreciate a place like this."

As I spoke, I tried to remember what my mother was speaking about when she was trying to leave Charlie. She spoke about someplace dry, someplace warm. And I cringed at the idea. I was like the Cullens. I only needed for the sun to shine on my face every now and again. My mother and Rachel couldn't appreciate it, but I certainly could.

Jacob stepped forward and wrapped his arms around me.

"You wont leave me for the Cullen's will you?" he asked as we hugged.

"Never," I promised. "And I know you hate it, but they belong here, too. This place is good for the Quileutes, and it's good for them. There's just something… _right_ about the Olympic Peninsula."

Jacob snorted at my declaration, but I could tell that he liked hearing it all the same. After all, why would I want to leave something that was right?

Finally, Jacob pulled away from me. "Still, I don't know why Billy had to come and talk to me. Rachel was the one threatening to leave."

"Well," I lightly teased, "you _are_ an impressionable young child. He's probably just worried about strange influences in your life right now."

Laughing, I ducked as Jacob threw an oily rag towards my head.

"Really, Jacob, don't worry about it. I bet your sister was just saying most of those things because she was angry. And what was she doing talking about college? She's got _ages_ before she has to worry about that!"

Jacob shook his head. "It's hot news on the res right now," he told me. "Sam Uley turned down a full scholarship, and the council is okay with it. Some of the parents are upset because they think it's setting a bad example."

It had been months since I'd seen or heard of Sam, but I wasn't surprised that he was once again the center of the gossip mill.

"What's been going on with him, then?"

Jacob made a face at me. "He's started coming around the house all the time. He talks to Billy a lot. And he got himself a new friend."

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"You remember Jared?"

I nodded. Jared was a few years older than me, but I'd seen him at bonfires. He'd always been surrounded by people, and I'd heard a lot of pretty girls talk about him.

"Well Jared buffed up about a month ago. I mean, he _really_ buffed up. He missed, like, two weeks of school, then came back for the last week a changed guy. Sam's the only one he's talk to-"

My eyes widened. Jared was a social butterfly. He loved having friends. I couldn't imagine him dropping all those friends just so he could hang out with one guy.

Jacob nodded at my expression. "They're calling each other brothers, now. And you know how Sam and Leah broke up a few months ago?"

I nodded.

"Sam's going steady with Leah's cousin Emily, now."

"Poor Leah!" I gasped, sympathy swelling in my chest. Leah was Rachel's and Rebecca's age, and she was friends with both twins, so I bumped into her around the house a lot.

"And the weird thing is, it seemed like Emily wasn't going to put up with his attitude, but then she suddenly just…"

"What is going on with that guy?" I asked.

Jacob shrugged. "I don't know. I mean, he seems nice enough whenever I talk to him, and my dad likes him, but… I've decided I don't want anything to do with him. He's just… everything turns weird whenever he's around."

This was a decision I fully supported, so I told him, "Good."

* * *

I was mortified.

"Bella, what are you wearing?" Jessica quietly hissed to me.

"You said we were going to the movies," I answered, still staring strait ahead.

"I said we were going _out_ to the movies," she corrected. "_Out_ means you wear something more flattering than a hoodie. Seriously, Bella, I'm trying to do you a favor here."

A _favor_, she said. There was no way that setting me up for a blind double-date with her and Mike Newton was a _favor_, especially not when she had made it sound like a girls-night-out.

Daniel was a sophomore, and he had transferred to Forks at the beginning of the year. The students of Forks made a habit of fawning over transfer students, but poor Daniel had transferred in with the Cullens, and his limelight had been stolen. As a result, his social prospects had been limited and he had ended up making friends with losers. He only recognized his mistake a couple weeks before the winter holidays, and now he was trying to play catch-up. Apparently, he'd taken my old seat at lunch. My old seat at lunch just happened to be perfectly placed to view the Cullen table, and I caught his eye every time he looked up from his food. Jessica, the self-proclaimed matchmaker had agreed to get him a date with me.

Of course, Jessica only saw fit to tell me all of this as Mike and Daniel were walking up to us.

"Hey, Bella," Mike greeted absently, his eyes on Jessica.

"Hey," I answered.

"This is Daniel," Mike continued, finally looking at me. "He started sitting with us at lunch this semester."

"Hey," I greeted, and Daniel gave me a charming smile. The sophomore was about three inches taller than me, and he was dressed to impress, which meant he looked better than I did. I hadn't washed my hair that morning, and I put it into a messy pony-tail to cover the fact. Daniel, however, looked freshly groomed. His blond hair was swept back in a handsome, classic style, and his teeth were white when he smiled. He wore a dark blue button-up shirt over a black tee. Both articles of clothing were clean and freshly pressed. I had grabbed my hoodie off of my closet floor before putting it on.

"So, uh, how are we getting to the theater?" I asked. My father had dropped me off at Jessica's house five minuets previously, and the four of us would be squished if her mother drove us in her Honda Accord.

"Daniel can _drive_," Jessica informed me, raising her eyebrows so she could make it clear that his car was a major positive aspect of his personality.

I almost told Jessica that Jacob could drive, too. He just wasn't legally allowed to take a car on public roads.

Jessica deftly arranged for me to sit in the front seat with Daniel before I could see what she was doing. The moment we were all buckled in and driving, though, Jessica crossed her legs towards Mike. She then successfully excluded Daniel and me from their conversation as they sat in the back seat.

"So," I said, grasping for conversation. "How do you like Forks so far?"

Daniel shrugged. "The first semester wasn't great, but this semester is shaping up to be much better." I wasn't used to flirting, and I wondered if his words were a subtle hint that he was only happier because he had a date with me.

"Oh, good. So you like your classes, then?" I asked. I decided that my official attitude for the night would be obtuse.

"Sure," he told me. "They're good. I'm really happy about the friends I've made, though. I've started hanging out with Ben and Angela."

"Angela's a good friend of mine," I told him. "She's the sweetest. I've never really talked to Ben, though. I think he might have been in my class in third grade…"

"This seems like the kind of town where you run into everyone eventually," Daniel told me.

I nodded. "I think Ben is one of four people I haven't come into personal contact with. Is he going out with Angela, yet?"

Daniel snorted. "Those two are too nice to know they have crushes on each other," he informed me. "They'll be married before he thinks of asking Angela out."

"I don't know," I argued. "I think Angela knows exactly what she wants. She's quiet, but she can be sneaky when she wants to. He'll ask her out."

"Not this year," Daniel told me.

"I never said it would be this year," I laughed. "Angela's patient. She can wait for Ben to grow up a little more."

The night ended up being pretty fun. During the movie, Daniel and I sat two rows behind Jessica and Mike, and we made fun of their clumsy flirting rather than watch the movie Jessica had picked out. After the movie, Daniel took me for a smoothie while he let Mike and Jessica make out in his car.

"Your Mazda wasn't made to handle that kind of abuse," I informed him when Jessica and Mike still hadn't come into the smoothie shop after fifteen minuets.

"That car belonged to my two older brothers before me, and they never had problems with it," he joked. "Peter says it's a right of passage."

I gave a surprised laugh. The topic wasn't anything I'd ever discussed before, even jokingly, so I couldn't keep the blush from my face as I asked, "So what? You're only a man after you've had a good make-out session in the back of your car?"

"Making out has nothing to do with being a man," he said lowly.

"Oh. My. God," I whispered. "You mean-"

Daniel nodded.

"And you seriously _took the car_ when they offered it to you?" I asked, and Daniel laughed at my incredulity.

"You two seem to be having fun," Jessica said as she came into the shop.

"What's the joke?" Mike asked.

The idea of repeating our conversation made the heat in my cheeks spread all the way to my ears. I imagined Daniel's two older brothers, and then I thought of Mike and Jessica. I guess that car's back seat had to have some sort of magic to it.

Daniel brushed off Mikes question easily. "We were just talking about the movie."

"Oh," Jessica said. "Well my curfew is coming up. Mike, will you get me a strawberry banana smoothie? Bella, we should go to the bathroom before we get back into the car."

I had spilled mango smoothie on my hand while I was laughing, so I was sticky. If I had known what Jessica had planned, I would have declined Jessica's suggestion and dealt with sticky fingers for the hour back to Forks.

The second we were in the bathroom, Jessica squealed. "This is great!"

"Yeah?" I asked lightly as I began washing my hands. "So you're having fun with Mike?"

"Yes! I mean, Mike is _good_. And since you're going out with Daniel, now, we can double date all the time and Daniel can get us out of Forks!"

Wait a minuet. "Daniel and I aren't going out."

"Maybe not now, but it's only a matter of days, maybe even _hours_. I mean, you two have had even more fun on your date than Mike and me!"

_On your date_. _Date. Date. Date. _

It hadn't felt like a date. I realized that Daniel had paid for my movie ticket, but not my smoothie. During the movie, he had touched my arm whenever he wanted to get my attention, but he hadn't been all over me the way Mike had been all over Jessica. We had made fun of the romantic movie, and we made fun of the budding romance between Mike and Jessica. But then we had talked about people having sex in the back of his car while we ate smoothies.

What the hell was going on?

Daniel and I didn't speak while we drove back to Forks. We turned up the radio to drown out Mike and Jessica in the back seat. Was that why it was so important to have a car? So that high scholars didn't have to be exhibitionists? To be fair, though, I wasn't even sure if they were even using tongue, so their behavior couldn't be that offensive.

We dropped Mike off at his house, first. After we dropped off a swooning Jessica, the music was turned off.

"So," Daniel began, and I wondered if he was going to officially ask me out. Then, I wondered if it was impolite to decline before his sentence was even finished. "What's it like sitting with the Cullens?"

"What?" I asked. That was the exact opposite of what I was expecting.

"The Cullens," he repeated. "What are they like? It must be strange to be the only normal people they hang out with."

"Alice hangs out with Angela," I argued.

"Angela says Alice only hangs out with her because of you," he countered.

"Oh. I'd never noticed. I guess there are so many kids in the family, they don't need to hang out with anyone else. They only hang out with me because… they knew me before they moved here."

"Yeah?" he asked. "Who do you hang out with the most?"

"Alice," I answered easily. "Then Emmett. I run into him a lot, but Alice is my best friend."

"Does she have a boyfriend?"

I blinked at the question. Then, the night came into focus. Daniel didn't like the friends he'd made during the first semester. Jessica said he began sitting in my old seat at lunch. My old seat had the best vantage point to view the Cullen table in the whole cafeteria. Jessica said I caught Daniel's attention every time he looked up from his food. I caught his attention, or _Alice_ caught his attention.

I burst into laughter. "You had Jessica set me up on a date with you so you could ask me about _Alice_? Oh, Jacob will get a kick out of this!"

Daniel's startled eyes flew to me. Unlike my vampire friends, though, he didn't have enhanced senses, so when his eyes left the road, the car swerved a bit. "What?!" he asked, "No! I-I mean, you're nice and all, but I never told Jessica it was a _date_. I just, Alice never even meets my eyes when I pass her in the hall, and I thought-"

"Sorry, Daniel. Alice has a boyfriend," I told him when my laughter died.

"Who?" he asked.

I decided it wasn't safe to answer _her brother, Jasper_. Instead, I told him, "He's at her old school in Olympia."

"Oh," he said, thoroughly rejected. He slumped back in his seat. With his focus back on the road, I wasn't worried when he took his right hand off the steering wheel and let it sag across the consol in-between the seats.

"It'll be okay," I told him, patting his hand. "You're a sophomore who's Mazda has a magical backseat. I'm sure it beckons to many fine young women."

A smile tugged at the edge of Daniel's mouth, and his gaze was pointedly fixed to the road in front of the car.

"What?" I asked. "You don't believe in the power of your Mazda Protégé?"

"Sure I do," he told me. "I mean, I've seen this baby in action. But I never said anything about the back seat."

"What?" I asked dumbly.

"I mean, the back seat is kind of uncomfortable when you try to lay in it. It's best to lean back the passenger seat and-"

"Shut up," I ordered. "Just- just shut up."

He was laughing as he dropped me off at my house. When I got upstairs, I pulled off my clothes, threw them all into the washing machine, then I took a hot shower.

**Annoying Note: Okay, I hate OCs, but there's a purpose to Daniel. I'm kind of in a hurry, so I only looked over this once before posting this chap. I'll edit some more later.**

**Happy Christmas, and watch an episode of 30Rock, cause it's amazing.  
**


	14. Chapter 13

**A/N: Merry Christmas, all! Enjoy the new chapter. (It's chapter 13, so that mean's you'll have bad luck if you read it, but you should read it, anyways).**

On Monday morning, Daniel found me outside my locker before first period.

"Hey," he said, a light blush rising to his cheeks, "about Saturday night." Daniel swept a strand of blond hair from his face and shifted nervously from foot to foot.

"Oh, I-" I began to speak, but Daniel cut me off.

"No, I – I'm sorry I let Jessica lead you on into thinking it was a date. I wasn't trying to use you to get to Alice or anything like that. I was just curious about her, and you're the only person in Forks who she hangs out with, so when Jessica mentioned going out on Saturday-"

"Don't worry about it," I demanded. "Jessica can get a little carried away. She thinks she's a matchmaker, but I don't think she really understand that not all girls are like her and-"

"And I had a nice night with you and everything," he continued, and I realized Daniel really did feel bad about what happened. This entire speech had already been written out and rehearsed. "I mean, you're a nice girl, and I can see why someone like Alice would hang out with you-"

"Daniel," I interrupted, and he paused to blink at me. "Really, it's okay. I didn't think of it as a date, either. I had a lot of fun, too. I'm lucky she tried to set me up with you, and not Tyler or someone who would have actually tried to make a date out of it. The night wasn't a complete dud, okay?"

Daniel sighed in relief, and he nodded. Within moments, his green eyes were bright and a him charming smile had returned. He bent forward to give me a hug. "Thanks, Bella," he said, and I blushed as he let me go and stepped away from me. "I should have known you'd be a cool person, the way Angela always talks about you." The praise made my blush deepen, and he waved as he began to walk towards his class. "I'll see you around, Bella!"

"Who was that?" Edward asked as he suddenly appeared beside me.

I jumped, turning towards him. His hazel eyes were focused on Daniel's retreating form.

"Edward! Where did you come from?" I asked. "Were you there the entire-"

"No," he answered quietly, and I remembered he was a vampire. He could have been on the other side of the school a few moments ago.

"Oh, yeah," I sighed. "That was Daniel. Jessica set me up on a blind date with him on Saturday," I told Edward with a grin. "It turns out he has a huge crush on Alice and-"

"No he doesn't," Edward told me, his eyes finally pulling away from Daniel's back. Edward gently took my books from my arms and began walking towards my class.

Before Edward could go far, I asked, "What?"

"He doesn't have a crush on Alice," Edward repeated.

"But on Saturday, and just now, both times he said he had a crush on Alice."

"Daniel told you that?" Edward asked, a frown on his lips. He looked back to Daniel again, and a small crease appeared between his eyes.

My eyes darted from Edward to Daniel. Finally, I remembered that Edward could read minds, and I realized he was specifically focusing on Daniel right then.

My eyes widened. "What's he thinking, Edward?" I asked lowly.

Edward was quiet. Finally, he said, "He's thinking about a project he has to do for his English class."

"That's _it_?" I asked.

I waited for Edward to answer. His face cleared and he turned to me again. "He doesn't have a crush on Alice. He thinks he does, but he doesn't. He doesn't know _what_ he wants."

I nodded. From what I knew of Daniel, this made sense. It had taken him an entire semester to realize he didn't like the people he was hanging out with. Maybe he didn't know what kind of people he wanted to be around at all. Now, he was in limbo and grasping for any connection he could. Of course, he was setting his sites kind of high with Alice, but at least the kid had good taste.

"He'll figure it out," Alice said confidently from behind Edward and me. I jumped and turned towards the girl as she came to sand behind me, then I silently admonished myself. I wondered why I was having such a hard time remembering that the Cullens were vampires that day. If Jacob knew they kept sneaking up on me, I'd never hear the end of it.

"Have you Seen something?" I asked, glancing at Daniel's back just before he turned a corner.

"Yeah. I Saw that you're going to be late to class if you let Edward distract you any longer."

I looked at the clock and gasped. Alice's laughter followed me as I snatched my books from Edward's arms and began to hurry towards my first class.

* * *

"What?" Charlie hissed into the phone. The tone in his voice startled me, and I put down my homework. I had never seen that twist of anger in Charlie's eyes. "And what about Ray, then?" he snapped. "They can't possibly think he'll-"

Charlie was quiet for a moment as he listened to the answer.

"Forget his father!" Charlie demanded. "This isn't exactly an issue of _parental consent_! He _needs_ to go to the hospital-"

Charlie listened to the answer again, then I blinked as he cursed and threw the phone into its receiver.

"Charlie?" I asked as he began tearing through the house. He didn't change into full uniform, but he put on his jacket and made sure he had his badge. "What's going on?"

"A kid was hurt out on the reservation, and they aren't taking him to the hospital," Charlie snapped.

"Wha – They wouldn't do something like that!" I gasped.

Charlie didn't seem to hear me as he muttered angrily to himself. As he began to storm out the door and towards the cruiser, I hurried after him.

"Stay home, Bella," he demanded as he saw me follow him towards the car. "You stay right-"

"No way," I told him. "I know Ray."

I didn't actually _know_ Ray Hilde. The kid was, like, eight years old and way too young to hang out with me, but he lived close to Jacob and I had once bought lemonade from him when he put out a stand one summer.

Charlie was in a hurry and he didn't argue too much. In the cruiser, I ignored his dark expresion as I pondered the situation. Surely Charlie had misunderstood. The Quileutes wouldn't refuse to treat an injured child. And while I hardly ever saw Ray, I saw his mother much more often. The woman wouldn't allow her child to suffer. She would take him to the ER.

A few minuets latter, I was surprised when we were pulling into Jacob's drive way.

"Why are we here?" I asked. "I thought Ray was hurt-"

"Billy gave the orders to keep the kid from the hospital," Charlie hissed angrily, and my eyes widened in shock.

_Billy_ said Ray couldn't go to the emergency room?

Charlie didn't knock before he barged into the tiny house.

Billy's chair was in the living room. His face was drawn, but there was a stubborn set to his jaw, and his commanding presence seemed to fill the room.

"What is _wrong_ with you, Billy?" Charlie immediately began to yell. "You can't refuse a child medical treatment-"

"We're not. Lucy, Sue's sister was a nurse when she lived in Chicago for all those years. She's on her way to-"

"If you took him to the hospital, the stitches would already be going into his arm," Charlie roared. "Why now? What's happened that no one can go to the hospital now- and don't think I haven't noticed! I know _you've_ been seeing a doctor in Port Angeles for the past few months."

"I won't have my people being treated my Carlisle Cullen," Billy answered, and I gasped.

"_What_?" Charlie roared. "You won't send an eight-year-old child to the best doctor on the Olympic Peninsula and probably in the entire state?"

"Carlisle fixed my-" I began, ready to remind Billy of my mishaps during the last summer while I was learning to gut and cook fish. However, before I could finish my sentence, a hand clamped over my mouth and choked my words.

"Hush," Jacob demanded quietly in my ear as he pulled me from the living room. Charlie had already begun to yell again, and the adults didn't notice as Jacob took my hand and began to pull me from the house.

"Jacob, what's going on? Carlisle's the best doctor I've ever met, and-"

"It's because he's a vampire," Jacob snapped. We tromped over a well worn path in the snow towards the garage.

"But he doesn't drink human blood. Alice says he's practically immune to it," I argued.

"Yeah, immune from the point of view of another vampire. But not immune from an eight-year-old human child's perspective."

"Don't be ridiculous, Jacob. I took my cut up hand to him-"

"Yeah, and there's another thing," Jacob said as he pushed me into the garage. He plugged in his small, old space heater, then turned to face me. "You can't let Billy know you've let Carlisle treat you."

"What? Why not?" I asked.

"I'm your friend, Bella, and I love you. I know you trust those monsters, and I know they took care of you after your mother's accident. That's why I let you hang out with them."

I snorted at his words. "I would hang out with them regardless if you let me or not-"

"I _know_," Jacob groaned. "And like I said, I love you, so I'm not going to fight with you about it. But Billy doesn't love you the way I do. You're like Rachel or Rebecca to him, and he would _never, never_ let them go around the Cullens. If he knew you were friends with them, he'd go ballistic."

Jacob's words only make me more upset. "This is ridiculous! Carlisle is a good person and a great doctor. All of this fear the vampire nonsense is going over the top! Ray is hurt-"

"That little twerp will be fine," Jacob told me dismissively. "Sue's sister is probably already at the house and taking care of it. The only reason it's being made into such a big deal is because Billy and the rest of the council have made the official declaration to avoid Dr. Cullen. The cut wasn't even that bad."

When I looked to Jacob, he had a strange expression on his face.

"What's the matter?" I asked. "Are you okay?"

"I just… There's been a lot of people coming around the house, and a lot of arguing. But… I've heard all the arguments before, and it just reminds me…"

Then, I remembered his mother. The current discussions were reminding him of the discussions people had when his mother was sick. Quickly, I stepped forward and put my arms around my friend. When he returned the embrace, he sagged against me a little. His hair was growing long – it was almost as long as mine, and I pushed it out of my face, out of his face, and over his shoulder as he set his face in my neck.

"Jacob?" I asked quietly.

"What if he could have helped her?" he asked. "What – what if she could have gotten sick now, instead of back then when he was still living in Olympia? You could have talked to her about Cullen, because you know him. Maybe you could have convinced her to go see him, even though the rest of us would have hated her for it. I bet… I bet she would have liked you enough to listen to you."

I felt horrible for Jacob. He'd been having a hard time with things lately. Sam Uley was hanging around his house, his sister was fighting with his dad, he was being pulled into the fight, his best friend was hanging out with vampires, and now he was thinking about his mother.

"You have it rough right now, don't you?" I asked gently. "You've been getting so upset lately."

"Yeah," he agreed quietly. "I hope it's just because I'm turning into a real teenager."

I remembered that Jacob's birthday was only a week away. I hadn't thought of anything to get him.

"I'll only be a two years younger than you in a week," Jacob told me. He shifted his weight away from me and lifted his head from my shoulder. When I met his eyes, he grinned. "And you see? You can already tell I'm growing!"

Sure enough, he was an inch taller than I was.

"No!" I yelled. "No way! This is _no fair_!"

Jacob laughed, delighted.

While we were growing up, Jacob had always been stronger than me. Whenever we thumb or arm wrestled, he won. But I was bigger than him, and I was only ever able to bully him into playing "girly" games with me by sitting on him. If he had size _and_ strength, then I was doomed.

"You're at the age where you stop growing, too," Jacob continued to laugh. "But I've only just begun to grow, so you're-"

I heard a door in the house slam, and I whipped around to look at the house through the garage's window. Charlie was marching across the lawn towards the garage. I had forgotten that while Jacob and I were talking out here, our dads were fighting inside the house. Unlike Jacob and I, it didn't look like our fathers had settled the matter at all.

"Dad?" I asked as he reached the garage door.

"We're going home, Bella," Charlie declared. His hand landed firmly on my shoulder, and he pulled me from the garage. We went around the house instead of through it to get to Charlie's cruiser. Jacob, however, had gone through the house instead of following us, and he followed Billy from the house as Billy pushed his chair onto the front stoop.

"You can't do this, Charlie!" Billy called as Charlie opened the passenger door and pushed me into the car. "I won't let you-"

Billy's words were cut off as Charlie slammed the door closed. I watched through the windshield as Jacob lips moved in question. Billy hardly heard his son as he called out to my father.

Within moments, Charlie had pulled out of the driveway and we were driving back towards Forks.

"Dad?" I asked. "What are you going to do? What did Billy mean?"

"Bella, you aren't going to La Push anymore," my father declared.

A barking laugh escaped my lips. I had never heard of such a ridiculous notion in my entire life. "Yeah, right, and you'll stop giving me fishing gear for Christmas."

Charlie flinched at my words, and I blinked.

"No," I declared. "_No_. _Why_?"

"Because you're a walking disaster, Bella," he said. "And I wont have you spending your summers in a place where you'll inevitably get hurt, and where they wont take you to the doctor when you do-"

"That's not true!" I cried. "Jacob and one of his neighbors took me to the emergency room last summer after the Cullens were here-"

"The council hadn't made an official declaration demanding that all Quileutes avoid Carlisle Cullen last summer.

My stomach dropped, and the sensation in my gut was similar to the feeling I had when Emmett had pushed the sleigh down the side of a steep hill. Now, however, Alice wasn't holding my hand.

"You – you can't," I argued. I tried to tell myself that my father didn't mean it, that he was only mad at Billy, but tears still came to my eyes. "Charlie, _please_," I begged. "I always spend summers in La Push."

"Well maybe it's time you try spending a summer somewhere else, then. Angela had fun at summer camp-"

The very idea was horrifying and traitorous, and I found myself yelling as I said, "_I'm too old for summer camp_!"

My voice was loud in the small car, and it seemed to shock Charlie out of whatever rage he was in.

He said, "I know you are, Bella," very quietly. I saw that he was calming down, and his rational mind was returning to him. I sighed in relief. Now that Charlie was calm and rational, he would see that he was being horrible and ridiculous, and then he would-

"But you're not going back to La Push this summer."

A strange emotion filled my chest, something I had never felt before. Tears began to run down my cheeks, but the emotion building in my chest wasn't sadness. I realized I was feeling anger, and it was all directed towards Charlie. I wanted to scream at him, to punch or slap him, anything that could make him hurt as much as his words hurt me.

I settled for crying silently in the passenger seat of the cruiser. I couldn't fully process the idea of not returning to La Push, and my mind was blank. Instead of thinking, I only felt the emotions which were building and cutting in my chest. Every few moments, my imagination would supply me with a picture of what my La Pushless future would look like, but the horrible emotion in my chest would jerk at my heart or my stomach, and my mind would return to a thoughtless state.

When we reached the house, Charlie turned off the cruiser and leaned back against his seat. "Bella," he began to say, but I pushed my door open, stumbled out of the cruiser, and I slammed the door behind me before he could really say anything.

Once inside the house, I took the stairs up to my room two at a time, then I paced back and forth across my floor, agitated.

The very idea – I couldn't – What did Charlie expect me to do? I would run away, I would! – And Jacob's birthday was the next week – Maybe Carlisle – Maybe Billy-

My poorly functioning brain supplied me with Billy's name, and I grabbed at it. The next moment, I rushed to the living room, grabbed the phone from its receiver, and I was running back to my room. I had the Black's number memorized, almost better than my own home phone number, and I was listening to the phone ringing before my bedroom door was closed again.

Billy answered.

"Billy, Charlie says I can't come to La Push anymore!" I cried as I fell onto my bed. "He – He said-"

"Bella, calm down," Billy demanded, his voice low and even. "It will be okay."

"How can you say that? He wanted to send me to _a summer camp_."

"Oh, Bella," Billy sighed. "You're as overemotional as your father."

I didn't want to be compared to Charlie just then, and Billy's words grated on my nerves.

"I can't stay in Forks for the summer," I pressed. "I can't-"

"You won't," Billy told me. "Really, Bella, don't worry. Charlie is angry now, and he'll probably stay angry for a while, but he can't keep you from your summers out here. Look, I'll talk to him and-"

"But he's angry at you!" I argued. "He won't want to talk to you-"

"He'll talk to Harry, though," Billy gently reminded me. "You're not the only Swan with friends and connections out here."

Billy was right, of course. If Charlie kept going out to La Push for all of his fishing, he couldn't keep me from going out there.

"What about Jacob's birthday?" I asked.

Now, Billy laughed. "He might be angry, but he'll be coming out here, and he'll being you with him."

"He- he will?" I asked.

"Sure," Billy told me. "He's about as likely to miss Jacob's birthday as he is to miss yours. And the Clearwaters and Embry's mother are coming out here, and he'll want to have diner with his friends."

I sighed, letting my head fall to my pillow. As the anger left my body, all of my energy seemed to seep away with it, and I felt boneless. "And you'll talk to him then?" I asked.

"Of course. You relax, sweetheart. Even if he doesn't cave by summer vacation, he'll cave a week into summer vacation. It'd drive him crazy to leave you alone by yourself."

"Thanks, Billy," I sighed.

"I'll see you next week," he promised.

I dropped the phone onto the pillow next to my head, then allowed my limbs to shake into a boneless heap on the bed. I turned my face into my pillow and breathed the familiar scent of my own shampoo as I calmed down.

"Bella!" my father yelled from the bottom of the stairs. "Incoming!"

I blinked at my father's strange call and began to sit up.

"Hey, girl," Alice greeted as she came into my room and closed the door behind herself.

"Alice?" I asked. "What are you doing here?"

"I Saw that you needed a distraction," she answered with a dismissive wave of her hand. "So what will it be? A movie marathon, or a spa treatment?"

"A spa treatment?" I asked. "There are no spas-"

The bag Alice held up looked large and cumbersome, but it dangled from her fingers as she held it up. She made it look like a designer purse.

"It's all about the minerals, Bella," Alice informed me.

I regretted asking about the spa. I should have known to pick the movie marathon without question.

**Annoying Note: Thanks for reading, and I hope you all enjoy a run of bad luck this Christmas Eve. I know I'm already starting to experience mine (damn the ice for thwarting my Christmas celebrations). Anyways, I was in such a hurry to post the last chapter, I didn't really register what I was doing. The first portion of this chapter was supposed to be part of last chapter, and it's awkward with the second portion of the chapter, but whatever. Anyways, thank you to the ever wonderful flamanipulator and connolrebecca for your reviews. Your words feed my soul (of course, I believe the soul basically runs off of ego**, **so thank you for the egotastic meal). **

**Well, I hope you have a fantastic Christmas!**

**And Review!!!  
**


	15. Chapter 14

**A/N- Hello! Here's another chapter. It's long, but long isn't typical of me, so don't expect all of my updates to look like this. :)**

"Jess says she's going to break up with Mike," Angela told me on the first day of the last week of school.

"Why?" I asked. "Because it's summer?"

"No. You know that boy that sits in your old seat?"

"Daniel?" I laughed. "Yeah, Jess tried to set me up on a date with him at the beginning of the semester."

Angela nodded. "Yeah, but now Jessica thinks she likes him."

I blinked at Angela as she told me this news. I wasn't so surprised that Jessica had flip-flopped about a boy once again. However, I was surprised that Angela was telling me about it. She never really was a gossip, and while there was always something to talk about with Jessica, Jessica was usually the one doing all the talking. When I studied Angela more closely, I realized she was biting her lip and fidgeting in her seat. She was uncomfortable.

I glanced around the classroom. The teacher wasn't even trying to control my classmates. Everyone was acting out and talking loudly to their neighbors. No one was actually talking about summer vacation, as far as I could hear, but I knew the promise of freedom was at the forefront of everyone's minds. As a result, my classmates were too wound up to pay attention to Angela and I as we spoke quietly in the back of the classroom.

"So?" I asked. "What's up?"

"So Mike can tell. He asked me to talk to Jessica for him. When I tried to talk to Jessica, she asked me to talk to Daniel for her. And when I talked to Daniel, he had no idea what was going on. It's like he sits with us at lunch, but he's not really there. He has _no idea_ that Jessica likes him. When he talked about her, he talked about her and Mike as a single unit, you know?"

I nodded, because I did know. I was there with Daniel, after all, on Jess and Mike's first date. Daniel and I had spent the ride home form Port Angeles trying to ignore the two as they kissed is Daniel's Mazda.

"So that's it? Mike likes Jess, Jess likes Daniel, and Daniel remains unaffiliated?"

"Yes!" Angela said. "Or not unaffiliated. We know he likes someone – Alice, I think – but he never talks about it, and he's pretty mysterious, and I think Jess has really romanticized this 'secret love' thing he has going on, and now she's trying to direct his attention to herself. Everyone else at the table is getting involved. Mike and Jess are pulling us all into it; they're making us _take sides_. And Daniel is _clueless_. So now Jess has built up this big summer romance with Daniel in her head, and I don't think it's happening."

"Okay," I said, turning by chair more towards Angela. "Do you know what to do, now?"

My poor friend shook her head and bit her lip. Angela was never good with drama, and I was sorry that she was pulled into one of Jessica's messes. I was usually the one Jessica talked to about her romantic issues.

"First, you need to talk to Daniel," I told her.

Angela's eyebrows shot up. "But Daniel doesn't know-"

"Exactly," I told her. "That's most of the problem. You have to _tell_ him. Then, when he asks you what he needs to do, tell him to strait up talk to Jessica. The sooner, the better, or else she'll have a ruined relationship with Mike and no summer romance to speak of."

Angela nodded, and a deep sigh rushed from her lips. "Thanks, Bella. I was never as good at dealing with Jess and her problems as you were."

"That's because I've had years of practice," I told her, rolling my eyes. "Jessica has been having boy problems since third grade."

Angela nodded, then gave me a hug. "You're a good friend, Bella," she told me, and a deep blush ruse up my neck and across my cheeks at the praise. After all, I didn't see myself as anything special, especially since I had stopped spending so much time with Angela and Jessica this semester so I could give more of my time to the Cullens.

That day at lunch, I was surprised when Daniel slapped his tray on the end of the table next to me and dragged a chair over.

"What's the matter?" I asked curiously.

Daniel glanced at the Cullens, and a light blush spread across his face, but he told his story to five complete strangers and one near stranger anyways.

"I was having an… awkward conversation with Jessica, and Mike walked in, and he took some of what I said the wrong way. He went and ran his mouth off to Ben and Connor. They were all giving me the evil eye before I was even through the line. I thought I could…?"

"Sit with us?" I asked. "Of course you can." Edward gently tapped his foot against mine under the table, so I added, "Of course, if you don't explain everything to Mike by the end of the week, your summer will completely stink. You know that, right?"

Daniel shrugged. "I wasn't really planning to hang out with Mike and Jess this summer, anyways," he told me.

"What are you going to do, then?" I asked.

"I'm doing a summer study program at the Washington Park Arboretum," Daniel told me, and I blinked at him.

"What are you going to do there?" I asked.

"Research and documentation," he told me. "Here, see?" he asked as he pulled an old notebook out of his backpack. I flipped through it, and every page had penciled pictures of plants on them.

"Wow," I said quietly as I flipped through page after page. "Are these just… plants that you see?"

"Yeah," he said proudly. "We live near forest, and I can just wonder into it and document anything I want. I started that notebook when we moved here, but I have notebooks for all the other places we lived, too, even New Mexico. Washington is better than all the other places, though. Since we kind of live in a rainforest, there's more plant diversity."

"How did you hear about the summer study program at the arboretum?" I asked as I studied a drawing of a fern. The picture was very, very realistic, like it could rise off of the page and I could touch it. I realized that the drawing looked so real because Daniel spent time drawing the imperfections of the plant. I had taken a drawing class in middle school, and while I was okay, my pictures never seemed quite right. Now, I thought that maybe it was because I didn't focus on imperfections at all, and instead I tried to draw perfect objects instead of real objects. It was amazing that I didn't understand this idea until I looked at Daniel's drawings. He really understood what he was drawing.

"Actually," Daniel told me with a cocky grin, "the summer study program was kind of created for me. I've been writing letters to the director of the arboretum ever since we moved her, and he was impressed with my documentation. He asked me to work for them this summer."

"That's really cool, Daniel," I told him as I handed the notebook back to him. "You must be excited."

He nodded.

"But what about next year?" I asked. "Mike and Jess will still be upset at you."

"Not if they have a good summer together," Daniel said with a grin and a wink.

"Maybe you should loan Mike your Magic Mazda," I suggested. "You know, so they can seal the deal-"

"Bella!" Alice squealed beside me.

My head whipped around to look at the other Cullens, a blush spreading across my face. I had forgotten that they were there.

"Hey, that's not a bad idea!" Daniel laughed as he stood to throw his tray away. "Mike'll be happy with me if he's able to take Jessica to Port Angeles this weekend."

Alice gently pinched my arm as Daniel moved away.

"What?" I asked.

"You know Jessica will take advantage of being alone with Mike in that car," Alice chided.

"You – you mean she and Mike will…?"

"Maybe not this weekend, but the second that car is introduced, their relationship is going to be a little more intense than it has been."

I couldn't help but shake my head with a laugh. I knew Jessica could take care of herself, and she wouldn't make any horrible or rash decisions. Except for the horrible decision to go out with Mike in that Mazda.

* * *

Summer came about, and Charlie was still upset about he Quileute's declaration to avoid the Forks hospital because of Dr. Cullen. On my first day out of school, Charlie left me at home with a list of chores and a rented movie. The chores were done and the movie was watched by 11 a.m., so I spent the afternoon cooking. That night, I served Charlie a five course meal while he watched a baseball game, and I even managed to make the desert decorative.

At dinner on the second day, I tried to give Charlie a seven course meal. He refused to eat the main course, then tried to put it in the refrigerator. However, I had essentially been cooking for two strait days, and the refrigerator was full of Tupperware and Saran wrap, so Charlie had to eat the sauté after all.

The next morning, Charlie dropped me off at Jacob's house. Billy was in the living room, watching television, and I kissed his cheek in greeting.

"Jacob's in the garage," he said in greeting.

"I brought some casserole over," I told him, holding up the two dishes I had cooked the day before. "I'll put them in the refrigerator."

"Thanks, Bella," he said, finally pulling his eyes away from the television to give my cheek an answering peck.

After putting the casseroles in the refrigerator, I went into the back to find Jacob.

"Hey!" I called when I saw Jacob under the hood of the Chevy.

Jacob immediately straitened, turned, and grabbed me in his arms. "Bella!" he cried, delighted. "You're here!"

He swung me around, and my foot caught the edge of a tool box and sent it crashing to the floor of the garage. Jacob only laughed at the grating noise of metal hitting concrete.

We more or less hadn't seen each other since Jacob's birthday. Billy had brought Jacob over once in February while the two older men watched a game, but otherwise, my only contact with Jacob over the last few months was through the phone. In that time, I had one other chance to go to his house, and I ended up spending the weekend with Emmett, instead. He had taken me into Port Angeles for some no-Alice shopping time. As a result, I hadn't seen Jacob in three whole months, which was the longest amount of time we had ever spent away from each other.

When Jacob set me back on the ground, though, he smiled as if we had only seen each other a week ago.

"Want to learn how to build a car?" he asked.

I laughed outright at his words. "I don't think I could ever build a car," I told him, "Even if you spent the rest of your life teaching me. I can watch _you_ build a car, though."

Jacob rolled his eyes. "Sure, sure," he said as he pushed me towards the low stool near a work bench. "You say that now, but I'll make sure you know your way around."

Fat chance.

* * *

"Hey, Bella!" Quil called as he pushed the garage door up and to the ceiling. I hadn't noticed how warm it was in the garage until fresh air hit my face. Embry ducked under Quil's arm and he plopped onto the floor next to me.

Like Jake, Embry had grown taller over the school year. He had surpassed me in height, but he was still pretty skinny. I decided his mother wasn't feeding him enough, and I would have to make sure he stayed for lunch.

It was only when I saw Quil's unchanged body that I noticed just how much the other two boys had grown. Jacob was obviously growing up faster than either of his Quileute friends. He had a sharper jaw, more intelligent eyes, and his shirtless back showed a bit of lean muscle which was beginning to grow around his lower back and shoulders. Embry had begun to grow his hair out, and his hands and feet were too large for his body. The boy wasn't aging quite as gracefully as Jacob, and I predicted that he would be an awkward teenager. Quil, however, remained virtually unchanged from the past summer. He had only grown enough to be barley taller than me, and his jaw still held all of his baby fat. Quil was a plump boy, even though he was as physically active as Jacob and Embry. Still, I was happy to see my two friends, changed and unchanged as they were.

"Hey, Bella," Embry greeted easily. "Where have you been? I feel like I haven't seen you in forever."

"I didn't think we would ever see you around here again, the way Charlie was going on," Quil told me. He kicked the truck's front fender as he walked past it, then laughed as something clanged and Jacob cursed from his place under the hood.  
"Where've you been?" Jacob asked his two friends as he straitened and wiped his hands on his jeans.

"Why aren't you wearing a shirt?" Quil answered.

Jacob ignored Quil and glanced to Embry for answers.

"There was a fire at the Walker's house last night," Embry told us. "Your father was there with the fire trucks when we rode past this morning."

"I was wondering where he'd gone," Jacob said absently as he scowled. "Is everyone okay? Was there much damage to their house?"

"Sam Uley was there, with you dad," Quil said. The scowl which settled across his lips seemed strange on his young face.

Embry nodded. "Apparently, he was the first one there. He got there before even the fire fighters. He pulled Linda and Addie out of the second story."

"Hold crow," I whistled. "That sounds dangerous."

Jacob shook his head. "And the house?"

"It's completely gone. Linda and Addie were lucky to get out," Embry told us. "They'll be okay, though. They were in the middle of moving to a house closer to First Beach, so most of their furniture has already been moved and they only lost their beds, a couch, and some clothes and a bunch of little things."

"Still," I spoke up, "That must have been scary."

"What did the fire chief have to say to Sam?" Jacob asked.

Quil's scowl deepened. "The whole fire department was singing his praise. Said he got Linda and Addie out of there even quicker than they could have. And now Sam's offered to help them settled into their new house. Said he'd help raise money to replace their furniture and some of the clothes they lost."

To me, it sounded like Sam had his act together. He was doing something good for Linda and her daughter when it sounded like they really needed the help. He was keeping his distance from Jacob, and Embry and Quil hardly ever even ran into the guy.

With these points considered, I had to wonder why the three boys had such deep frowns.

Jacob was the first to shake it off. "Well are you two going to help me with this piece of junk or what?" he asked as he shook the pliers in his hand towards the truck.

"Sure," Quil immediately answered.

"I'll help when I can," Embry told us, "but Joseph Lake gave me his old dirt bike, so I'll probably spend my summer fixing it up, especially since it's something I'll be able to legally ride around the reservation."

"No way," Quil said, a jealous flush rising in his cheeks.

"You know, I'll be turning 16 in September," I reminded the boys. "I'll be getting a real car, so I won't be stuck on dirty old bikes."

"My bike won't be dirty," Embry said indignity. A small, adorable pout touched the edge of his lips, and I had to smile. Any maturity he might have gained over the school year was lost when his bottom lip came out the tiniest bit.

"Will you be helping Jake, too?" Quil asked me.

"As much as I can," I answered. "I'll probably end up providing him with company and food, more than anything else. And my dad has forbidden me from doing anything beyond breathing while I'm out here, so…"

"Yeah," Embry said quietly. "How is Charlie? He wasn't too hard to live with when he said you couldn't come out here, was he?"

"No. Some of my friends, the Cu-" Jacob's eyes caught mine and he sent me a silent warning before the name could rush past my lips. "-the kid's I go to high school with did a good job of distracting me. Plus, I spoke to Billy, and he promised to wear Charlie down for me."

"You're hanging out with more people from Forks, now?" Quil asked. "Like who?"

I was at a loss. The three boys knew of Angela, Samantha, and Jessica, and they knew the boundaries of my relationship with the three girls. Heck, I didn't even speak to Samantha anymore, ever since she started hanging out with some juniors. Jacob knew who was taking up all of my attention during the school year, but Quil and Embry knew better than to believe that Angela or Jessica were suddenly so interesting to me.

Jacob saved the day with an easy laugh. "Tell them about your 'date,' Bells."

"You went on a _date_?" Quil asked, his eyes wide. "With a human boy?"

"His name was Daniel," Jacob supplied as he turned back to the truck's exposed engine.

Quil whistled. "Did you kiss him?"

"No!" I cried, silently thanking the brilliance of Jacob for that quick save. "It wasn't like that!" I spent the rest of the morning giving the boys play-by-play details of my date. I had already told this entire story to Alice and a highly amused Carlisle one afternoon soon after the whole misunderstanding with Daniel occurred, but it was different talking about it with the boys. Alice pressed me for details the way a girl would. She asked if I had _really_ forgotten that it was supposed to be a date. She asked if I had looked at him like it _was_ a date, and she wanted to analyze his portion of the conversation to see if _he_ had thought anything of me. With the Quileute boys, though, they talked a lot about what Daniel and I talked about. Quil asked only once if Daniel seemed into me. The rest of the time, I repeated details of Mike and Jessica's sloppy flirting, and I told them about Daniel's magic Mazda Protégé. By the end of my story, Jacob had completely forgotten about working on the truck, and the three boys were sitting with me in a circle as we all laughed.

"I only wanted a car because I thought they were cool!" Quil laughed. "I didn't know they could be magic sex machines too!"

"It seems unsanitary," Embry contemplated.

"Yes!" I cried, remembering the rush of embarrassment I felt when Daniel told me about the passenger seat of his car. I had lathered my body is soap four times that evening. "Exactly!"

"Fine, then, Mister Embry Call," Quil snorted. "You can take your girls out on the back of a dirty bike, then you can take them home to your mama's house. _I'll_ drive them up the coast, where no one will walk in on nothing, and we'll have it easy in the back seat-"

I put my face in my hands, unable to handle the thought of the thirteen-year-old Quil Ateara with any girl in the back of any car. I wondered if he'd be just as awkward as Mike Newton when he tried to discreetly kiss Jessica in the lobby after we'd seen the movie.

"Quil, you should worry about catching a girl before you can think about what you'll _do_ on a date with her," Jacob teased. He pinched Quil's chubby cheek playfully, and Quil roughly smacked his hand away.

"I bet I know more about girls than you do!" Quil snapped.

"Kissing Tammy in second grade doesn't count," Jacob told him. "You only did it because you saw Miss Carson and Mrs. Dawler kiss each other in greeting one morning-"

"Okay, Jacob Black," Quil growled as he leaned forward. "Truth or dare?"

"Truth," Jacob said automatically, and Embry snorted at Jacob's cowardice.

"Did you _really_ kiss Susan Chitto before the winter dance?"

"_What_?" I cried, and Jacob stuttered. "You kissed someone-?"

"Not someone. _Susan Chitto_," Embry corrected. "From the _high school_."

Jacob stuttered over his words for a moment before finally letting out a whooshing breath and telling us, "No. She totally came onto me, though. She tried-"

Quil and Embry didn't let him finish. They were crowing with laughter.

"You are such a liar, Jacob!" Embry laughed. "You _swore_ you'd kissed a girl before. I heard you bragging to Seth when Leah called you a twerp-"

"I have kissed a girl!" Jacob argued.

"Who, then?"Quil laughed. "And your sisters and Bella count just as much as Tammy does!"

My face was already burning because of the subject matter, but the second Quil brought up my name, I knew that Jacob _had_ been bragging about kissing me, and my face was so hot I felt like it would catch on fire.

"Oh, no!" Jacob easily dodged. "You got your truth. It wasn't Susan Chitto. Now _you_ Quil. Truth or dare?"

"Dare," Quil said boldly.

Jacob leaned forward and pointed out the garage door at the blue Sedan sitting in the driveway. "That's Carla Sukey's car. She's a friend of Rebecca's. I _dare_ you to get her to kiss you, if you're such the stunner."

The Quileutes had beautiful tanned skin, but when the blood drained from their faces, they looked sick in a strange way, like they were clammy but running a high temperature at the same time.

"Carla Sukey?" Quil gulped.

I remembered the pretty girl who stayed at the Black's house for dinner a few times the previous summer. "Ooh," I told Quil, "She's a cutie. I bet she's the best first kiss you'll ever find."

"And you can't just walk into the house then come back out and say it was done. We have to see it," Jacob told Quil.

"I – I don't think-"

"Good, Quil," Embry pressed. "Don't think about it at all, or you'll loose your nerve. Just go into the house, get her outside, and kiss her. If you don't, you go back on the dare."

I wasn't sure how most people played truth or dare, but there were rules to the game with Jacob and his friends. Dares weren't easy to get out of because the consequences included public nudity.

Quil wisely chose the embarrassment of being rejected by a girl to the embarrassment of having to find his way home without cloths, and he said, "Okay, okay," as he stood.

I would have felt bad for Quil if he hadn't been pressing Jacob so hard about that kiss.

We watched Quil as he shuffled towards the house.

"Lord, he's actually going to do it!" Embry quietly observed. The three of us were still as we watched him disappear into the house. Not two minuets latter, Carla followed him out of the house.

"No wa-!"

I threw my hand over Jacob's mouth and pulled him to my side before he could yell any louder. The three of us ducked out of view so that Carla couldn't see us, then we tip-toed to the front of the garage and gathered at the edge of the open garage door. It was a tight fit, and Embry stepped on my hand, but we all managed to get a view.

"Can you hear them?" Embry whispered. "What are they saying?"

Jacob and I were silent as we strained to hear their conversation. Carla's back was to us, and we could barely see Quil's fidgeting hands.

"Why isn't anything happening?" Jacob asked.

My legs became uncomfortable from my position, so I rocked back a bit.

"Ow!" Jacob hissed as my elbow ran into his knee. He set his hand against my shoulder and kept me steady as he pressed his legs against my back and leaned forward to get a better view of Quil and Carla.

"No way," Jacob hissed quietly. "_No way_."

My eyes widened. Carla was a couple inches taller than Quil, and she had to lean down, but _she was the one leaning_. Her lips met Quil's, and I couldn't help my call of surprise. Embry jerked back against the wall, howling, and Jacob went with him. Because of their distraction, I was the only one who saw as Carla began to straiten in surprise when she heard the noise the two boys made, but then Quil's hands were braced behind her neck and he was pulling her back towards him. His mouth was open and everything!

"_Quil Ateara_!" I screeched as I stood strait. "That's out of line!"

Carla thought so, too, because when she pulled away from him, she smacked him, then marched back into the house. Quil was grinning though, even after I gave him another smack for good measure.

"You don't treat girls like that!" I told him. "That was even worse than Mike Newton!"

Jacob gave Quil a high-five. I smacked Jacob's stomach as I cried, "Don't encourage him!"

"She knew what she was getting into," Quil said confidently, and I groaned. We had created a monster.

**Annoying Note: I hope you enjoy the chapter! The last of this chapter was just meaningless summer stuff, but I had fun writing it, especially Quil's part. I hope you liked it, too. Review, please!**


	16. Chapter 15

Jacob straitened and stretched. "Ugh," he groaned. "I need to get away from this for a minuet. Every time I think I've fixed something, I find three more things wrong. And now I'm filthy, too." Jacob pushed away from the Chevy's hood and wiped at some oil on his upper arm to demonstrate his point. When he looked to me again, he said, "Let's go to the beach."

"My dad hasn't said I could leave your back yard yet," I reminded as I set my book aside.

Jacob shrugged. "So don't tell him," he said dismissively. My eyes widened at my young friend's willingness to disobey our parents and go behind their backs. "Come on, this is the first time the rain has let up this summer." Jacob pressed. "Everyone will be out there, and we haven't stopped working on the truck in two weeks."

"I've hardly touched the truck," I pointed out. "You've done all the work."

"You're in the garage as much as I am," Jacob told me. "You deserve a break just as much as I do." He took my hand and pulled me off my butt. "Let's see if Rachel can take us. I'm sure she's got some friends at the beach who she can hang out with."

I followed Jacob into the house as he yelled for his sister.

"What do you want, numskull?" Rachel asked as she came out of the bathroom. When I saw her, I was reminded of Alice. Rachel was only an inch taller than me, but she was much more developed, and she was very graceful. Her long hair was wrapped in a towel, she wore only short shorts and a revealing tank top, her toes and fingers were freshly painted, and she wore a green mask over her face. When she came closer, I found that she still smelled like her bubble bath. Alice looked just like that whenever she tried to have girl time with me. However, love of self pampering was the only similarity between Rachel and Alice. While I thought of Alice as a fairy, I thought of Rachel as a beautiful troll. Rachel talked about bodily functions more often and in greater detail than Jacob, Quil and Embry combined. She had no table manors, she told crude jokes, and she was the rudest person I had ever met. Still, she was a nice girl, and most people who met her liked her.

"Can you take us to the beach?"

Rachel laughed. "You trying to break Bella out of jail?" she asked. She threw her arm over my shoulder and ruffled my hair.

"Stop it!" I cried. When I moved away from her, I tried to straiten my hair and untangle a few knots that had been formed by her hand.

"You'll take us though, wont you?" Jacob pressed.

"Sure," Rachel said with a shrug. "But if Dad asks, you have to tell him that you lied to me and said that Charlie knew you were going."

"Right," Jacob agreed.

"Can I borrow one of your swim suits?" I asked Rachel.

Rachel began to laugh. Jacob and I met eyes. When he looked back to his sister, he raised an eyebrow in question.

"Bella," Rachel finally said as her laughter died, "You have to grow bigger tits before you can wear one of _my_ swim suits."

My eyes widened, my face grew hot, and I shoved Rachel, and then Jacob as he began to laugh with his sister.

"You can wear one of my shirts," Jacob told me. "I'm sure you could fill that-"

"Jacob Black!" I hollered. This time, when I pushed him, I made sure to put enough force into the shove that he actually stumbled a bit.

* * *

Rachel found her friends almost immediately. Three girls were sunbathing close to the water. They were turned onto their stomachs, and they flipped through popular magazines while making plans to drive to Port Angeles the next weekend, when the weather was supposed to be bad again. Rachel threw her towel down next to the pretty Quileute girls and joined their conversation without so much as a hello. Jacob kicked sand onto his sister's towel as he sat on the beach next to her. When I sat down, I sat my back to Jacob's so we could lean against each other.

The Quileutes talked about school and their friends. I recognized most of the names, and I enjoyed hearing about what everyone had been doing over the school year. Jacob put in his two cents every now and again, and he finally caught the older girl's attention.

"What grade are you going into, Jacob?" one of Rachel's friends asked.

"Eighth," he answered simply.

"What?! You're still a baby! How did you manage to score with Bella?"

"He hasn't scored with anyone," Rachel told her friend. "Bella only hangs out with him because she can't handle my sister and I, and she feels sorry for Jacob."

I rolled my eyes and wondered how Rachel could manage to fit so many insults into one sentence.

"Actually," Jacob said behind me, "Bella always chose to hang out with me because you bullied her and made fun of her when you played games. I remember when you put a spider in her hair once."

I laughed when I remembered that morning. I was in forth grade at the time, and I had only been playing with the twins because I was mad at Jake. The spider horrified me, and even though Jake and I were mad at each other, he still got really upset when I started crying. Billy ended up giving the two of us ice cream to calm us down.

"We haven't bullied Bella in years," Rachel told Jacob snidely, and she turned her nose up at him.

"You told me I had small tits this morning," I pointed out.

The girls laughed, and Jacob snorted behind me.

"Well you do have small tits," Rachel grumbled. When Jacob continued to laugh, Rachel reached over and pushed him into the sand. Without Jacob's back supporting mine, I fell back over his legs.

"You two go cause problems somewhere else," Rachel demanded. She smacked her little brother with a magazine she had stolen from one of the other girls when he didn't move fast enough.

Jacob stood and stuck his tongue out at his sister as he helped pull me out of the sand. I waved good-bye Rachel's friends as Jacob and I started walking down the beach.

"Okay," Jacob said, "Truth or Triple Truth?"

"What?" I asked. "What about Dare?"

"You can't get in trouble," Jacob reminded me. "Neither of our parents said you could leave the house."

"Oh. Right. Truth, then," I told him.

"Okay," he said, and he bit his lip in contemplation. "How much do you _really_ like the Cullens?"

I rolled my eyes. "The Cullens are great, Jacob. You know that! They take care of me and-"

Jacob rolled his eyes as well. "Are you honestly comfortable with them, though? I mean, even though you know they drink blood and everything?"

I blinked. I thought specifically of the morning after my false date with Daniel, when the reminder of Edward's abilities kept surprising me. "I guess not," I answered grudgingly. "I mean, I do get really, _really_ comfortable with them. I get so comfortable that sometimes I forget they're vampires, you know?"

"I… What?" Jacob asked, a small crease appearing between his eyes. "No, I don't know."

"I love them," I said plainly. "When my dad first said I couldn't come to La Push anymore, I was _so_ upset. But Alice, she knew I was upset, and she was just automatically there for me every moment I needed her. Then Edward and Emmett started helping her distract me, and I grew closer to Esme and Carlisle… I started spending _a lot_ of time with them at their house, and they were kind of like a replacement for you, and your father, and the reservation. I found myself thinking of the Cullens as family, and I suddenly started just… forgetting that they were vampires. But they kept reminding me. Like, they would demonstrate their super speed, or Edward would say something about somebody's thoughts, or Alice would comment about the future, and I would be startled. It was like… I stopped remembering that they're more that I am. And when they display that they _are _more than me and I'm not expecting it, I get uncomfortable."

Jacob was silent as he continued to walk next to me. He frowned, and the crease between his eyes deepened as his eyebrows grew closer together. I wondered if he had even been listening to my entire little speech, or if he had been distracted by something and hadn't bothered to interrupt me while I tried to explain how I felt with the Cullens.

Finally, I said, "Truth or Triple Truth?"

"Truth," he said automatically. He was pulled from his thoughts and he looked towards me.

"Okay," I said lightly. "Who's Susan Chitto?"

Jacob blushed. "She's a sophomore."

My eyebrows rose. She was even older than me. "_And_?" I pressed.

"Well," Jacob lightly stuttered, "You know the middle school and high school combine their dances, for budget, you know-"

"Susan Chitto," I reminded. I knew perfectly well that the middle school and high school dances were combined, and Jacob only mentioned it because he was trying to stall.

"Well, I was dancing with my sister's group of friends, and she was with them. At one point, it was just me and her because everyone else was either distracted by food or the games. There was this really cool picture booth, too, so everyone was-"

"Susan Chitto," I reminded, unwilling to tolerate Jacob's stall tactics.

"She came out of nowhere!" Jacob declared. The red flush on his cheeks began to spread down his neck as he continued to talk. "I mean, we were just dancing, and then we weren't in the gymnasium at all, and she had me cornered. She tried to kiss me, but I didn't… I mean, it didn't happen." Jacob's hair fell from its place behind his ear, and he let it hang in front of his face. I couldn't see his eyes, but his head was tilted towards the ground. I wondered if he was embarrassed or ashamed. Then, I wondered why he would ever feel ashamed. I decided that he was embarrassed. He had to be embarrassed. He couldn't be ashamed that a girl had come onto him, after all.

Jacob suddenly straitened. He pushed his hair back behind his ear, and when I saw his face, I couldn't find any trace of what he was previously feeling. "Truth or Triple Truth?" Jacob challenged.

"Triple Truth."

Jacob stopped walking. Startled, I stopped with him. I watched his face for a moment as he gathered his thoughts, then I looked around. I realized we had reached the edge of the beach and cliffs. We stood under the cliff's shadow, so there were no sun bathers anywhere near us. And there was no one on top of the cliff, because people only went up there at night, for the bonfires.

When I looked back to Jacob, he was chewing his lip.

"What?" I asked.

"What did you mean?" he asked. "You said the Cullens were a replacement…" He tapered off, as if unsure. It took me a moment to realize he was referencing my last truth, when he asked me about the Cullens.

"Well," I said slowly, "Just that. I was really upset about not coming out here, and they distracted me from myself. I mean… for a couple of weeks, I really didn't know what to do with myself." I laughed at the memory. "And at that time, nothing had even changed, you know? I was still going to school, like I always did, and I saw all the same people, like I always did, and I still talked to you on the phone all the time. And really, nothing was going to change until the summer, but I was already freaking out about what I was going to do."

But Jacob shook his head. "You said they were _replacements_…"

I laughed outright at this. "Yeah right! Like anyone could ever really replace you! I'm great friends with them, and I love the Cullens, but I only got to be such great friends with them because they were _distractions_. They were your replacements, but they were only temporary replacements. They just… I… I hung out with them because I couldn't hang out with you. And by then, I had already spoken to Billy, and he promised that I would come back this summer, so I was just waiting for the time to pass. That's the only reason I didn't freak out more, Jacob. If your father hadn't already promised that I would still come out for the summer… And – And you know what?! When I told the Cullens that Charley didn't want me coming out here, Carlisle almost called Charlie to offer me a place at _their_ house for the summer. If Charlie knew that was an option, I never would have gotten back out here! He would have taken them up on their offer in a heart beat-"

Jacob stepped forward and wrapped his arms around me. The hug effectively silenced me, and I leaned against him. He had grown another couple inches since I'd last seen him, and my jaw rested against his shoulder. When I put my arms around him, my hands rested in his hair, against his back.

"I'm glad they're only a distraction," Jacob said quietly. I almost pulled away to remind him that yes, the Cullens had been a distraction, but that wasn't all they were. They were much more to me. However, I think Jacob understood this to some extent, and I didn't want to ruin his momentary relief. So instead of moving away, I moved my hands and cheek so that I was more comfortable to stay in the hug for a while longer.

**Annoying Note: Ta-da! It's another chapter. Hope you liked it. Review and tell me what you think about it.**


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